CLIPPED  WINGS 


Copyright,  1914,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  January,  1916 


TO 

ROBERT   H.  DAVIS 

\VITH      AFFECTIONATE     ADMIRATION 


CLIPPED    WINGS 


CLIPPED    WINGS 


CHAPTER  I 

HPHE  proud  lady  in  the  new  runabout  was  homeward 
1  bound  from  a  shopping  raid.  It  was  her  first 
voyage  down-town  alone  with  the  thing.  She  guided 
the  old  family  horse  up  to  her  curb  in  a  graceful  sweep, 
but,  like  a  new  elevator-boy,  could  not  come  to  a  stop  at 
the  stopping-place. 

She  could  go  forward  or  back,  but  she  could  not  exactly 
negotiate  her  own  stepping-block.  As  she  blushingly 
struggled  for  it  she  heard  the  scream  of  a  child  in  desperate 
terror.  It  inspired  an  equal  terror,  for  it  came  from  her 
own  house. 

She  had  left  her  two  children  at  home,  expecting  play 
mate  guests.  She  had  extracted  from  them  every  imagin 
able  promise  to  be  good  and  to  abstain  from  danger. 
But  she  knew  how  easily  they  romped  into  perils.  She 
heard  the  cry  again,  and  clutched  her  breast  in  a  little 
death  of  fear  as  she  half  leaped,  half  toppled  from  her 
carriage  and  ran  up  the  walk,  leaving  the  horse  to  his 
own  devices. 

The  poor  woman  was  wondering  which  of  her  be 
loved  had  fallen  on  the  shears  or  into  the  fire.  Which 
of  the  dogs  had  gone  mad,  and  bitten  whom.  While 
she  stumbled  up  the  steps  she  heard  the  outcry  repeated 
and  she  paused. 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

That  voice  was  the  voice  of  neither  of  her  own  children. 
The  thought  that  a  neighbor's  child  might  have  perished 
in  her  home  was  almost  more  fearful  still.  As  she  fumbled 
at  the  door-knob  she  heard  the  thud  of  a  little  falling  body. 
Then  there  was  a  most  dreadful  silence. 

She  hastened  to  the  big  living-room.  She  thrust  back 
the  somber  hanging,  and  stepped  on  the  arm  of  her  own 
son. 

He  was  lying  in  a  crumpled  heap  on  the  floor.  He 
did  not  move,  though  his  wrist  rolled  under  her  foot. 

She  flinched  away,  sickened,  only  to  behold  a  yet 
ghastlier  spectacle:  her  daughter  hung  across  the  arm 
of  a  couch,  her  hair  over  her  face,  and  one  limp  hand 
touching  the  floor.  At  her  feet  was  a  young  nephew  in 
a  contorted  huddle  with  his  head  under  the  table.  The 
son  of  a  neighbor  was  stretched  out  on  a  chair,  his  face 
flung  far  back  and  his  eyes  staring. 

And  on  the  panther-skin  by  the  fireplace  a  young  girl 
whom  Mrs.  Vickery  had  never  seen  before  lay  sidelong, 
singularly  beautiful  in  death. 

Before  this  vision  of  inconceivable  horror  the  mother 
stood  petrified,  her  throat  in  the  grip  of  such  fright  that 
she  could  not  utter  a  sound.  Then  her  knees  yielded 
and  she  sank  to  the  side  of  her  boy,  clutched  him  to  her 
breast,  and  cried: 

"Eugene!    my  little  "Gene!" 

She  pressed  her  palsied  lips  to  his  cheek.  Thank  God, 
it  was  still  warm.  He  moved,  he  thrust  her  arms  away, 
and  mumbled.  She  bent  to  catch  the  words: 

"Lea'  me  alone!     I'm  dead!" 

With  a  sigh  of  infinite  relief  she  spilled  him  back  to 
the  rug,  where  he  lay  motionless.  She  called  sharply  to 
the  girl  on  the  couch: 

"Dorothy!     Dorothy!" 

A  tremor  ran  through  the  child — she  seemed  to  struggle 
with  herself.  From  her  cataract  of  curls  came  a  sound  as 
of  torn  canvas,  a  sound  dangerously  like  one  of  those  ex- 

2 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

plosions  of  snicker  that  Dorothy  frequently  emitted  in 
church  during  the  long  prayer.  But  she  did  not  look  up. 

Half  angry,  half  ecstatic,  Mrs.  Vickery  rose  and  moved 
among  the  littered  corpses,  like  Edith  looking  for  King 
Harold's  body  on  Hastings  field.  She  passed  by  her 
nephew,  Tommy  Jerrems,  and  Mrs.  Burbage's  boy, 
Clyde,  and  proceeded  to  the  eerie  stranger  on  the  panther- 
skin. 

This  child  would  have  looked  deader  if  she  had  not 
been  breathing  so  hard,  and  if  her  exquisite  face  had  not 
been  so  scarlet  in  the  tangle  of  her  hair,  which  was  curi 
ously  adorned  with  bottle -straw  and  excelsior  from  a 
packing-case  in  the  cellar  and  with  artificial  flowers  from 
a  last-summer's  hat  of  Mrs.  Vickery's  in  the  attic. 

Mrs.  Vickery  bent  above  the  panting  ruins,  lifted  one 
relaxed  hand,  and  inquired,  "And  who  are  you,  little 
girl?" 

"Don't  touch  me,  please;  I'm  all  wet!" 

Mrs.  Vickery  forgot  her  imagination  long  enough  to 
expostulate,  "Why,  no,  you're  not,  my  dear!" 

And  now  the  eyes  opened  with  the  answer:  "Oh  yes,  I 
am,  if  you  please.  I've  just  drownded  myself  in  the  pool 
here — if  you  please." 

"Oh!"  Mrs.  Vickery  assented.  "Well,  hadn't  you  bet 
ter  get  up  before  you  catch  cold?" 

The  answer  to  this  question  was  another — a  poser. 

"But  how  can  I  get  up,  if  you  please,  until  you  lower 
the  curtain?" 

Mrs.  Vickery  had  been  a  parent  often  enough  and  long 
enough  to  obey  the  solemn  behests  of  children  without 
impertinent  whys.  She  could  not  imagine  what  incan- 
tational  power  might  reside  in  the  roller  window-shade, 
but  she  hurried  to  it  and  pulled  it  down. 

The  little  girl  scrambled  to  her  feet  with  a  smile  of 
brave  regret:  "Thank  you  ever  so  much!  That's  not 
a  'maginary  curtain,  but  only  a  real  one.  Still,  it  will 

3 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

have  to  do,  I  s'pose."  Then  she  addressed  the  other 
victims  of  fate,  all  of  whom  were  craning  their  necks  to 
peek:  "Now,  ladies  and  gent'men,  take  your  curtain 
calls." 

On  every  hand,  as  at  a  little  local  Judgment  Day,  the 
dead  arose.  They  joined  hands  in  a  line  at  her  signal. 
Then  she  hissed  from  the  side  of  her  mouth,  "Now  raise 
it,  please."  The  curtain  shot  up  with  a  slap.  "Thank 
you.  And  if  you  wouldn't  mind  applaudin'  a  little." 

The  reaction  from  her  terror  had  rendered  Mrs.  Vickery 
almost  hysterical,  but  she  managed  to  keep  her  face 
straight  and  her  hands  busy  while  the  line  bowed  and 
bowed. 

Once  more  the  directress  whispered  to  Mrs.  Vickery, 
"Pull  the  curtain  down  a  minute,  please,  and  let  it  go  up 
again."  When  this  was  done  she  said,  "If  you  got  any 
flowers  handy,  they'd  be  nice." 

Mrs.  Vickery  unpinned  a  small  bouquet  of  violets  she 
had  presented  herself  with  at  the  florist's  and  tossed  it  at 
the  foot  of  the  swaying  line. 

The  directress  hissed  from  the  other  side  of  her  mouth, 
"Pick  'em  up,  'Gene,  and  give  'em  to  me." 

Eugene  stooped  so  hastily  and  with  such  rigidity  of 
knee  that  an  over-tried  button  at  the  back  of  his  knickers 
shot  across  the  room.  Dorothy,  who  had  not  ceased  to 
giggle,  whooped  with  joy  at  this,  and  received  a  glare  of 
rebuke  from  the  star.  This  did  not  silence  Dorothy. 
But  then  her  parents  had  tried  for  nine  years  to  find 
some  way  of  making  her  stop  laughing  without  making 
her  begin  to  cry. 

Eugene  was  solemn  enough  and  blushed  to  his  ears  as 
he  bestowed  the  flowers  upon  the  stranger,  who  first 
motioned  the  others  back  and  then  acknowledged  the 
tribute  alone  with  profound  courtesies  to  Mrs.  Vickery 
and  to  unseen  and  unheard  plauditors  at  the  right  and 
left.  Her  smile  was  the  bizarre  parody  of  innocence 
imitating  sophistication.  Then  she  threw  off  the  mien  of 

4 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

artifice  and  became  informal  and  a  child  again.     The  game 
was  evidently  over. 

Mrs.  Vickery,  realizing  now  that  she  was  the  belated 
audience  at  a  tragedy,  assumed  her  most  lion-hunting 
manner  and  pleaded,  meekly,  "Won't  somebody  please 
introduce  me  to  Mrs.  Siddons!" 

Dorothy  gasped  with  amazement  and  gulped  with 
amusement  at  her  mother's  stupidity.  But  before  she 
could  make  the  presentation  the  stranger  cried: 

"Oh,  how  did  you  know?" 

"Know  what,  my  dear?" 

"That  my  name  was  Siddons!" 

"Is  it,  really?  But  I  was  referring  to  the  famous  actress. 
She's  been  dead  for  a  hundred  years,  I  think." 

"Oh  yes,  but  I'm  named  after  her.  My  middle  name 
is  Mrs.  Siddons — of  course  I  mean  just  Siddons.  I'm  a 
linyural  descender  from  her." 

Dorothy  broke  in,  seriously  enough  now:  "Why, 
Sheila  Kemble,  how  you  talk!  You  know  you're  no  such 
thing.  Your  name  is  Kemble.  Isn't  it,  Clyde?" 

Clyde  nodded  and  Dorothy  exclaimed,  "  Yah!" 

Dorothy  had  not  the  faintest  idea  who  Mrs.  Siddons 
might  be,  save  that  she  was  evidently  a  person  o~f  dis 
tinction,  but  Dorothy  had  a  child's  ferocious  resentment 
at  seeing  any  one  else  obtaining  prestige  under  false  pre 
tenses.  Sheila  regarded  her  with  a  grandmotherly  pity 
and  answered: 

"My  name  is  Kemble,  yes;  but  if  you  know  so  much, 
Miss  Smarty-cat,  you  ought  to  know  that  Mrs.  Siddons's 
name  was  Miss  Kemble  before  she  married  Mr.  Siddons." 
And  now  in  her  turn  she  added  the  deadly  "Yah!" 

Mrs.  Vickery,  in  the  office  of  peacemaker,  tried  to  change 
the  subject:  "'Sheila' — what  a  beautiful  name!"  she 
cried.  "It's  Irish,  isn't  it?" 

"Oh  yes,  ma'am.  My  papa  says  that  if  you're  a  great 
actor  you  have  to  have  a  streak  of  either  Irish  or  Jew  in 
you!" 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

"Indeed!    And  is  your  father  a  great  actor?" 
"Is  he?    Ask  him!" 

Mrs.  Vickery  was  tormented  with  an  intuitional  sus 
picion  that  she  was  in  the  presence  of  a  stage-child.  She 
had  never  met  one  on  the  hither  side  of  the  footlights.  It 
was  uncanny  to  stumble  upon  it  dressed  like  other  children 
and  playing  among  them  as  a  child.  There  was  a  kind 
of  weirdness  about  the  encounter  as  if  she  had  found  a 
goblin  or  a  pixie  in  the  living-room,  or  a  waif  suspected 
of  scarlet  fever. 

It  was  she  and  not  the  pixie  that  felt  the  embarrass 
ment  !  The  first  defense  of  a  person  in  confusion  is  usually 
a  series  of  questions,  and  Mrs.  Vickery  was  reduced  to 
asking: 

"What  sort  of  plays  does  your  father  play?" 
"Draw'n-room  commerdies  mostly.     People  call   'em 
Roger  Kemble  parts." 

Mrs.  Vickery  spoke  with  a  sudden  increase  of  respect: 
"So  your  father  is  the  great  Roger  Kemble!    And  is 
your  mother  an  actress,  too?" 

"Is  my  mother  an  actress?  Why,  Mrs.  Vickery,  didn't 
you  ever  hear  of  Miss  Polly  Farren?" 

It  would  have  been  hard  indeed  to  escape  the  name  of 
Miss  Polly  Farren.  It  was  incessantly  visible  in  news 
papers  and  magazines,  and  on  bill-boards  in  letters  a  yard 
high,  with  colossal  portraits  attached.  Mrs.  Vickery  had 
seen  Polly  Farren  act.  A  girlish,  hoydenish  thing  she 
was,  who  made  even  the  women  laugh  and  love  her.  Mrs. 
Vickery  felt  at  first  a  pride  in  meeting  any  relative  of  hers. 
Then  a  chill  struck  her.  She  lowered  her  voice  lest  the 
children  hear: 

"But  Miss  Farren  isn't  your  mother?" 
"Indeed  and  she  is!    And  I'm  her  daughter." 
"And  Roger  Kemble  is  your  father?" 
"Yes,  indeedy.     We're  all  each  other's." 
Mrs.  Vickery  turned  dizzy;  the  room  began  to  roll  like 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

a  merry-go-round — without  the  merriment.  Sheila,  never 
realizing  the  whirl  she  had  started,  brought  it  to  a  sudden 
and  gratifying  stop  by  her  next  chatter. 

"You  see,  when  mamma  married  papa"  (Mrs.  Vickery's 
relief  was  audible)  "  they  wanted  to  travel  as  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Kemble,  but  the  wicked  old  manager  objected.  He  said 
mamma's  name  was  a  household  word,  and  she  was 
worth  five  hunderd  a  week  as  Polly  Farren  and  she  wasn't 
worth  seventy-five  as  Mrs.  Kemble." 

Mrs.  Vickery,  whose  husband  was  proud  of  his  hundred 
a  week,  was  awestruck  at  the  thought  of  a  woman  who 
earned  five  hundred. 

Of  course  it  was  wicked  money,  but  wasn't  there  a  lot 
of  it?  She  was  reassured  wonderfully,  and,  though  a 
trifle  tinged  with  shame  for  her  curiosity,  she  baited  the 
child  with  another  question: 

"And  have  you  been  on  the  stage,  too?" 

"Indeed,  I  have!  Oh  yes,  Mrs.  Vickery.  I  was  almost 
born  on  the  stage — they  tell  me.  I  don't  'member  much 
about  it  myself.  But  I  'member  bein'  carried  on  when 
I  was  very  young.  They  tell  me  I  behaved  perf'ly  beau'- 
fully.  And  then  once  I  was  one  of  the  little  princes  that 
got  smothered  in  the  Tower,  at  a  benefit,  and  then  once 
we  childern  gave  a  childern's  performance  of  '  The  Rivals.' 
And  I  was  Mrs.  Mallerpop." 

Mrs.  Vickery  shook  her  head  over  her  in  pity  and 
sighed,  "You  poor  child!" 

vSheila  gasped,  "Oh,  Mrs.  Vickery!"  Her  eyes  were 
enlarged  with  wonder  and  protest  as  if  she  had  been 
struck  in  the  face. 

Mrs.  Vickery  hastened  to  explain:  "To  be  kept  up  so 
late,  I  mean:  and — and — weren't  you  frightened  to 
death  of  all  those  people?" 

"Frightened?  Why,  they  wouldn't  hurt  me.  They 
always  applauded  me  and  said,  'Oh,  isn't  she  sweet!'" 

Mrs.  Vickery  had  read  much  about  the  woes  of  factory 
children  and  of  the  little  wretches  who  toil  in  the  coal- 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

mines,  and  she  had  heard  of  the  agitation  to  forbid  the 
appearance  of  children  on  the  stage.  The  tradition  of 
misery  was  so  strong  that  she  was  blinded  for  the  moment 
to  the  extraordinary  beauty,  vigor,  and  vivacity  of  this 
example.  She  felt  sorry  for  her. 

Sheila  had  encountered  such  mysterious  pity  once  or 
twice  before  and  she  flamed  to  resent  it.  But  even  as 
eloquence  rushed  to  her  lips  she  remembered  her  mother's 
last  words  as  she  kissed  her  good-by — they  had  been  an 
injunction  to  be  polite  at  all  costs. 

The  struggle  to  defend  her  mother's  glory  and  to  obey 
her  mother's  self-denying  ordinance  was  so  bitter  that  it 
squeezed  a  big  tear  out  of  each  big  eye. 

Mrs.  Vickery,  seeming  to  divine  the  secret  of  her  plight, 
cuddled  her  to  her  breast  with  a  gush  of  affectionate 
homage.  Reassured  by  this  surrender,  Sheila  became 
again  a  child. 

And  now  Dorothy,  with  that  professional  jealousy  which 
actors  did  not  invent  and  do  not  monopolize,  that  jealousy 
which  is  seen  in  animals  and  read  of  in  gods — Dorothy 
stood  aloof  and  pouted  at  the  invader  of  her  mother's 
lap.  Her  lip  crinkled  and  she  batted  out  a  few  tears  of 
her  own  till  her  mother  stretched  forth  an  arm  and  made 
a  haven  for  her  at  her  bosom.  Then  Mrs.  Vickery  spoke 
between  the  two  wet  cheeks  pressed  to  hers : 

"And  now  what  was  this  wonderful  game  where  so 
many  people  got  killed  ?  Was  it  a  war  or  a  shipwreck  or — 
or  what?" 

Sheila  forgot  her  tears  in  the  luxury  of  instructing  an 
elder.  With  unmitigated  patronage,  as  who  in  her  turn 
should  say,  "You  poor  thing,  you!"  she  exclaimed: 
"Why,  don't  you  know?  It's  the  last  ack  of  'Hamlet!'" 

"Oh,  I  see!  Of  course!  How  perfectly  stupid  of 
me!" 

Sheila  endeavored  to  comfort  her:  "Oh  no,  it  wasn't 
stupid  a  tall,  Mrs.  Vickery,  if  you'll  pardon  me  for  cont'- 

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adictin',  but — well,  you  see,  we  got  no  real  paduction,. 
no  costumes  or  scenery  or  anything." 

Mrs.  Vickery  said:  "That  doesn't  matter;  but  who  was 
who?  You  see,  I  got  in  so  late  the  usher  didn't  give  me 
a  program." 

Sheila  was  rejoiced  at  this  collaboration  in  the  game. 
She  explained:  "Oh,  the  p'ograms  didn't  arrive  in  time 
from  the  pwinter,  and  so  we  had  a  'nouncement  made 
before  the  curtain.  He's  a  most  un'liable  pwinter  and 
I  sent  the  usher  for  the  p'ograms  and  he  never  came 
back.  'Gene  was  Hamlet  and  he  was  awful  good.  He 
read  the  silloloquy  out  of  the  book  there.  He  reads 
very  well.  And  Dorothy  was  his  mother,  the  Queen, 
and  she  was  awful  good,  too  —  very  good,  indeed, 
'ceptin'  for  gigglin'  in  the  serious  parts,  and  after  she 
was  dead." 

Dorothy  giggled  and  wriggled  again,  to  show  how  it 
was  done.  After  this  interruption  was  quelled  Sheila 
went  on: 

"Tommy  Jerrems  was  Laertes  and  he  was  awful  good. 
The  duel  with  'Gene  was  terrible.  I'm  afraid  one  of  your 
umbrellas  was  bent — the  poisoned  one.  Tommy  didn't 
want  to  die  and  I  had  to  hit  him  with  a  hassock,  and  then 
he  was  so  long  dyin',  he  held  up  the  whole  paformance. 
But  he  was  very  good.  And  Cousin  Clyde  he  was  the 
wicked  King,  and  he  was  awful  good,  but  then,  o'  course* 
he  comes  of  our  family,  and  you'd  naturally  expeck  him 
to  be  good." 

Mrs.  Vickery  suppressed  a  gasp  of  protest  from  Dorothy, 
who  was  intolerant  of  self-advertisement,  and  said:  "But 
you  were  dead,  too,  Sheila.  Who  were  you?" 

"Why,  I  was  Ophelia,  o'  course!" 

"Oh!  But  I  thought  Ophelia  died  long  before  the  rest, 
and  was  buried,  and  Hamlet  and  Laertes  fought  in  her 
grave,  and — " 

"Oh  yes,  that's  the  way  it  is  in  the  old  book.  But 
I  fixed  it  up  so's  Ophelia  only  p'tended  to  die — or,  no,  I 
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CLIPPED    WINGS 

mean  they  thought  she  was  dead,  and  they  buried 
another  lady,  thinkin'  she  was  her — and  all  the  while 
Ophelia  is  away  in  a  kind  of  a — a — insanitarum  gettin' 
cured  up.  And  she  comes  home  in  the  last  ack  to 
s'prise  everybody,  and  she  enters,  laughing,  and  says, 
'Well,  caitiffs  and  fellow-countrymen,  I'm  well  again!' 
And  she  sees  everybody  lyin'  around  dead — and  then 
she  goes  mad  all  over  again  and  drownds  herself  in 
the  big  swimmin'-pool — or  I  guess  it's  a — a  fountain — 
near  the  throne." 

"Oh,  I  see,"  said  Mrs.  Vickery.  "That  sounds  ever 
so  much  better." 

"Well,"  said  Sheila,  shrugging  her  impudent  little 
shoulders  like  any  other  jackanapes  of  a  reviser,  "as  my 
papa  says,  'It  sort  of  knits  things  together  better  and 
bolsters  up  the  finish.'  You  know  it's  kind  of  bad  to 
leave  the  leading  lady  out  of  the  last  ack.  It  makes  the 
audience  mad,  you  know." 

"Yes,  I  know!  And  was  it  you  who  screamed  so  at 
the  end  of  the  play?" 

Sheila  hung  her  head  and  tugged  at  a  button  on  Mrs. 
Vickery 's  waist  as  she  confessed:  "Well,  I  did  my  best. 
O'  course  I'm  not  very  good — yet." 

Dorothy  was  so  matter-of-fact  that  she  would  not  tol 
erate  even  self-depreciation.  She  exploded: 

"Why,  Sheila  Kemble,  you  are  so!  She  was  wonderful, 
mamma!  And  she  was  so  mad  crazy  she  gave  me  the 
creeps.  And  when  finally  she  plounced  down  and  died, 
all  us  other  deaders  sat  up  and  felt  so  scared  we  fell  over 
again.  She  went  mad  simply  lovely." 

And  Tommy  Jerrems  added  his  posy:  "  I  bet  you  could 
'a'  heard  her  holler  for  three  blocks." 

"I  bet  I  did!"  Mrs.  Vickery  sighed,  remembering  the 
fright  she  had  had  from  that  edged  cry. 

The  other  children  fell  into  a  wrangle  celebrating  Sheila 
as  a  person  of  amazing  learning,  powers  of  make-believe 
and  command,  and  Sheila,  throned  on  Mrs.  Vickery's 

10 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

lap,  sat  twisting  her  fingers  in  the  pleasant  confusion  of 
one  who  is  too  truthful  to  deny  and  too  modest  to  confess 
a  splendid  achievement.  Now  and  then  she  heaved  the 
big  lids  from  her  eyes  and  Mrs.  Vickery  read  there  rapture, 
deprecation,  appeal  for  applause,  superiority  to  flattery, 
self-confidence,  and  meekness.  And  Mrs.  Vickery  felt 
that  those  eyes  were  born  to  persuade,  to  charm,  to  thrill 
and  compel. 

At  last  Mrs.  Vickery  said,  mainly  for  politeness'  sake, 
"I  wish  I  could  have  seen  the  performance." 

The  hint  threw  a  bombshell  of  energy  into  the  troupe. 
The  mummers  all  began  to  dance  and  stamp  and  shriek, 
"Oh,  let's  do  it  again!  Let's!  Oh,  let's!" 

Every  one  shouted  but  Sheila.  Her  silence  silenced  the 
others  at  last.  She  already  knew  enough  to  be  silent 
when  others  were  noisy  and  to  shriek  when  others  were 
silent.  Then  like  a  leaderless  army  the  children  urged  her 
to  take  the  crown. 

Sheila  thought  earnestly,  but  shook  her  head:  "It 
isn't  diggenafied  to  play  two  a  day."  This  evoked  such 
a  tomblike  sigh  that  she  relented  a  trifle:  "We  might  call 
this  other  one  a  matinee,  though,  and  call  the  other  one  a 
evening  paformance." 

This  was  agreed  to  with  ululation.  The  children  set  to 
gathering  up  the  disjected  equipment,  the  deadly  um 
brellas,  and  the  envenomed  cup.  The  last  was  a  golf  prize 
of  Mr.  Vickery's.  Dropped  from  the  nerveless  hand  of 
the  dying  king,  it  had  received  a  bruised  lip  and  a  profound 
dimple. 

With  the  humming-bird  instinct,  the  children  stood 
tremulously  poised  before  one  flower  only  a  moment,  then 
flashed  to  another.  It  was  a  proposal  by  Tommy  Jerrems 
that  called  them  away  now. 

Tommy  Jerrems  had  frequently  revealed  little  glints 
of  financial  promise.  He  had  been  a  notorious  keeper 
of  lemonade-stands,  a  frequent  bankrupt,  a  getter-up 

ii 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

of  circuses,  and  a  zealous  impresario  of  baseball  games  in 
which  he  did  all  the  work  and  got  none  of  the  play.  He 
was  of  a  useful  but  unenviable  type  and  would  undoubtedly 
become  in  later  life  a  dozen  or  more  unsalaried  treasurers 
and  secretaries  to  various  organizations. 

Tommy  Jerrems  proposed  that  the  play  of  "Hamlet" 
should  be  enacted  at  his  mother's  house  as  a  regular  enter 
tainment  with  a  fixed  price  of  admission.  This  project 
was  hailed  with  riotous  enthusiasm,  and  King  Claudius 
turned  a  cart-wheel  in  the  general  direction  of  a  potted 
palm — and  potted  it. 

There  was  some  excitement  over  the  restoration  of  this 
alien  verdure,  and  Mrs.  Vickery  was  glad  that  her  own 
home  had  not  been  re-elected  as  playhouse.  She  made  a 
mild  protest  on  behalf  of  Mrs.  Jerrems,  but  she  was 
assailed  with  so  frenzied  a  horde  of  suppliants  that  she 
capitulated;  at  least  she  gave  her  consent  that  Dorothy 
and  Eugene  might  take  part. 

There  was  a  strenuous  Austrian  parliament  now  upon 
a  number  of  matters.  Somehow,  out  of  the  chaos,  it  was 
gradually  agreed  that  there  should  be  real  costumes  as 
well  as  what  Sheila  called  "props."  She  explained  that 
this  included  gold  crowns,  scepters,  thrones,  swords,  hel 
mets,  spears,  and  what  not. 

Suddenly  Sheila  let  out  another  of  those  heart-stopping 
shrieks  of  hers.  She  had  been  struck  by  a  very  lightning 
of  inspiration.  She  seized  Tommy  as  if  she  would  rend 
him  in  pieces  and  howled:  "Oh,  Tommy,  Tommy, 
Tommy!  You  ask  your  mother  to  have  the  bath-tub 
brought  down  to  the  back  parlor  and  filled  up  and  then 
I  can  drownd  myself  in  real  water." 

A  pack  of  wolves  could  not  have  fallen  more  noisily 
on  a  wounded  brother  than  the  children  fell  on  this. 

Tommy  alone  was  dubious.  He  was  afraid  that  the 
bath-tub  was  too  securely  fastened  to  the  bath-room  to 
be  uprooted.  But  he  promised  to  ask  his  mother.  Sheila, 
the  resourceful,  had  an  alternative  ready: 

12 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"Well,  anyway,  she  could  have  a  wash-boiler  brought 
in  from  the  kitchen,  couldn't  she?" 

Tommy  thought  mebbe  she  could,  but  would  she? 

Mrs.  Vickery  did  not  interfere.  She  had  an  idea 
that  Mrs.  Jerrems  could  be  trusted  to  see  to  it  that 
Ophelia  had  an  extra-dry  drowning.  Mrs.  Jerrems  was 
rather  fond  of  her  furniture. 

Money  to  buy  gold  paper  for  the  crowns,  and  silver 
paper  to  make  canes  look  like  swords  and  curtain-poles 
like  spears,  nearly  wrecked  the  project.  But  Tommy 
thought  that  by  patience  and  assiduity  he  could  shake 
out  of  the  patent  savings-bank  his  father  had  given  him 
enough  dimes  to  subsidize  the  institution,  on  condition 
that  he  might  reimburse  himself  out  of  the  first  moneys 
that  were  bound  to  flood  the  box-office. 

There  was  earnest  debate  over  the  price  of  admission. 
Clyde  Burbage  suggested  five  pins,  but  Sheila  turned  up 
her  nose  at  this;  it  sounded  amateurish.  She  said  that 
her  father  and  mother  would  never  play  in  any  but  two- 
dollar  theaters — or  "fe-aters,"  as  she  still  called  them. 
Still,  she  supposed  that  since  the  comp'ny  was  all  juveniles 
they'd  better  not  charge  more  than  a  dollar  for  seats, 
and  fifty  cents  for  the  nigger-heaven. 

Tommy  Jerrems,  who  had  some  bitter  acquaintance 
with  the  ductile  qualities  of  that  community,  emitted  a 
long,  low  "Whew!"  He  said  that  they  would  be  lucky  to 
get  five  cents  a  head  in  that  town,  and  not  many  heads 
at  that.  This  sum  was  reluctantly  accepted  by  Sheila, 
and  the  syndicate  moved  to  adjourn. 

Sheila  put  her  hand  in  Mrs.  Vickery 's  and  ducked  one 
knee  respectfully.  But  Mrs.  Vickery,  with  an  impulse  of 
curious  subservience,  knelt  down  and  embraced  the  child 
and  kissed  her. 

She  had  an  odd  feeling  that  some  day  she  would  say, 
"Sheila  Kemble?  Oh  yes,  I  knew  her  when  she  was  a 
tiny  child.  I  always  said  she  would  startle  the  world." 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

She  seemed  even  now  to  hear  her  own  voice  echoing 
faintly  back  from  the  future. 

The  guests  made  a  quiet  exit  at  the  door,  but  they 
stampeded  down  the  steps  like  a  scamper  of  sheep. 
Sheila's  piercing  cry  came  back.  It  was  wildly  poignant, 
though  it  expressed  only  her  excitement  in  a  game  of  tag. 


CHAPTER  II 

'""PHE  house  seemed  still  to  quiver  after  the  neighbors' 
1  young  had  left.  Mrs.  Vickery  moved  about  restoring 
order.  And  Dorothy  bustled  after  her,  full  of  talk  and 
snickers.  But  Eugene  curled  up  in  a  chair  by  a  window 
as  solemn  as  Sophokles. 

Mrs.  Vickery  was  still  thinking  of  Sheila.  She  asked 
first  of  her,  "  How  did  you  come  to  meet  this  little  Kemble 
girl?" 

Dorothy  explained:  "Oh,  I  telephoned  Clyde  Burbage 
to  come  over  and  play,  and  he  said  he  couldn't,  'cause  they 
had  comp'ny;  and  I  said,  'Bring  comp'ny  along,'  and  he 
did,  and  she's  his  cousin;  her  grandma  lives  at  his  house, 
and  her  papa  and  mamma  are  going  to  visit  there  at 
Clyde's  for  a  week.  Isn't  Sheila  a  case,  mamma?  She 
says  the  funniest  things.  I  wish  I  could  'member  some  of 
'em." 

Mrs.  Vickery  smiled  and  stared  at  Dorothy.  In  the 
grand  lottery  of  children  she  had  drawn  Dorothy.  She 
saw  in  the  child  many  of  her  own  traits,  many  of  the 
father's  traits.  She  loved  Dorothy,  of  course,  and  had 
much  good  reason  for  her  instinctive  devotion,  and  many 
rewards  for  it.  And  yet  the  child  was  singularly  talentless, 
as  her  father  was,  as  Mrs.  Vickery  confessed  herself  to  be. 

She  wondered  at  the  strange  distribution  of  human  gifts 
— some  dowered  from  their  cradles  with  the  workaday 
virtues  and  commonplace  vices,  and  some  mysteriously 
flecked  with  a  kind  of  wildness  that  is  both  less  and  more 
than  virtue,  an  oddity  that  gives  every  speech  or  gesture 
an  unusual  emphasis,  a  rememberable  differentness. 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Dorothy  was  a  safe  child  to  have;  she  would  make  a 
reliable,  admirable,  good  woman.  But  Mrs.  Vickery 
felt  that  if  Sheila  had  been  her  child  she  would  have  been 
incessantly  afraid  of  the  girl  and  for  her,  incessantly  un 
certain  of  the  future.  Yet,  she  would  have  watched  her, 
and  the  neighbors  would  have  watched  her,  with  a  breath 
less  fascination  as  one  watches  a  tight-rope  walker  who 
moves  on  a  hazardous  path,  yet  moves  above  the  heads  of 
the  crowd  and  engages  all  its  eyes. 

Little  Eugene  Vickery  had  a  quirk  of  the  unusual,  but 
it  was  not  conspicuous;  he  was  a  burrower,  who  emerged 
like  a  mole  in  unexpected  places,  and  led  a  silent,  incon 
spicuous  life  gnawing  at  the  roots  of  things. 

His  mother  found  him  now,  as  so  often,  taciturn,  brood 
ing,  thinking  long  thoughts — the  solemnest  thing  there  is, 
a  solemn  child. 

"Why  are  you  so  silent,  Eugene?"  she  said. 

He  smiled  sedately  and  shook  his  head  with  evasion. 
But  Dorothy  pointed  the  finger  of  scorn  at  him;  she 
even  whittled  one  finger  with  another  and  taunted  him, 
shrilly : 

'"Gene's  in  love  with  Sheila!  'Gene's  in  love  with 
Sheila!" 

"Am  not!"  he  growled  with  a  puppy's  growl. 

"Are  so!"  cried  Dorothy,  jubilantly. 

"Well,  s'posin'  I  am?"  he  answered,  sullenly.  "She's 
a  durned  sight  smarter  and  prettier  than — some  folks." 

This  sobered  Dorothy  and  crumpled  her  chin  with 
distress.  Like  her  mother,  she  had  long  ago  recognized 
with  helpless  regret  that  she  was  not  brilliant. 

Mrs.  Vickery,  amazed  at  hearing  the  somber  Eugene 
accused  of  so  frivolous  a  thing  as  a  love-affair,  stared  at 
him  and  murmured,  "Why,  "Gene!" 

Feeling  a  storm  sultry  in  the  air,  she  warned  Dorothy 
that  it  was  time  to  practise  her  piano-lesson.  Dorothy, 
whose  other  name  was  Dutiful,  made  no  protest,  but 
began  to  trudge  up  and  down  the  scales  with  a  perfect 

16 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

accuracy  that  was  somehow  perfectly  musicless  and  almost 
unendurable. 

Mrs.  Vickery  knew  that  Eugene  would  speak  when  he 
was  ready,  and  not  before.  She  pretended  to  ignore  him, 
but  her  heart  was  beating  high  with  the  thrill  of  that  new 
era  in  a  mother's  soul  when  she  sees  the  first  of  her  children 
smitten  with  the  love-dart  and  becomes  a  sort  of  painfully 
amused  Niobe,  wondering  always  where  the  next  arrow 
will  come  from  and  which  it  will  hit  next. 

After  a  long  while  Eugene  spoke,  though  not  at  all  as  she 
expected  him  to  speak.  But  then  he  never  spoke  as  she 
expected  him  to  speak.  He  murmured: 

"Mamma?" 

"Yes,  honey." 

"  Do  you  s'pose  I  could  write  a  play  as  good  as  that  old 
Shakespeare  did?" 

"Why — why,  yes,  I'm  sure  you  could — if  you  tried." 

Mrs.  Vickery  had  always  understood  the  rarely  com 
prehended  truth  that  praise  creates  less  conceit  than  the 
withholding  of  it,  as  food  builds  strength  and  slays  the 
hunger  that  cries  for  it. 

Eugene  was  evidently  encouraged,  but  he  kept  silence 
so  long  that  finally  she  gave  him  up.  She  was  leaving  the 
room  when  he  murmured  again: 

"Mamma." 

"Yes,  honey." 

"I  guess  111  write  a  play." 

"Fine!"  she  said. 

"For  Sheila." 

"Oh!" 

Mrs.  Vickery  cast  up  her  eyes  and  stole  out,  not  know 
ing  what  to  say.  Already  the  child  was  turning  his  af 
fections  away  from  home  and  her. 

An  hour  later  she  almost  stepped  on  him  again.  He 
was  lying  on  the  rug  by  the  twilight-glimmering  window 
of  the  dining-room,  whither  Dorothy's  relentless  scales 
had  driven  him.  He  was  lying  on  his  stomach  with  his 

17 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

nose  almost  touching  his  composition-book,  and  he  was 
scrawling  large  words  laboriously  with  a  nub  of  pencil 
so  stubby  that  he  seemed  to  be  writing  with  his  own  fore 
finger  bent  like  a  grasshopper's  leg. 

William  Shakespeare,  Gent.,  sleeping  in  Avon  church, 
had  no  knowledge  of  what  conspiracy  was  hatching  against 
his  long-enough  prestige.  And  if  he  had  known,  that 
very  human  mind  of  his  might  have  suspected  the  truth, 
that  the  inspiration  of  his  new  rival  was  less  a  desire  to 
crowd  an  old  gentleman  from  the  top  shelf  of  fame  than 
to  supplant  him  in  the  esteem  of  a  certain  very  young 
woman. 

Shakespeare  himself  in  that  same  kidnapped  play  of 
his  called  "Hamlet"  complained  of  the  children's  theater 
that  rivaled  his  own. 

There  was  complaint  now  of  the  new  children's  theater 
in  the  minor  city  of  Braywood.  Three  homes  were  topsy 
turvied  by  the  insatiable,  irrepressible  mummers. 


CHAPTER  III 

IT  was  less  than  an  hour  after  Sheila  had  left  Mrs. 
Vickery's  when  Mrs.  Jerrems  was  on  the  telephone, 
plaintively  demanding,  "Who  on  earth  is  this  Kemble 
child?" 

Mrs.  Vickery  told  her  what  she  knew,  and  Mrs.  Jerrems 
sighed:  "  A  stage-child !  That  explains  everything.  She's 
got  Tommy  simply  bewitched." 

Besides  the  requisition  for  costumes  and  accessories 
that  turned  every  attic  trunk  inside  out  there  was  an 
uneasy  social  complication. 

Mrs.  Jerrems  and  Mrs.  Burbage  knew  each  other  only 
slightly  and  liked  each  other  something  less  than  that. 
Yet  Tommy  and  Sheila  had  arranged  that  Mrs.  Burbage 
and  her  husband  and  her  mother  and  the  strangers  within 
their  gates  should  all  descend  upon  Mrs.  Jerrems  and 
pay  five  cents  apiece  for  the  privilege  of  entering  her 
drawing-room. 

Only  one  thing  could  have  been  more  intolerable  than 
obeying  the  children's  embarrassing  demand,  and  that 
would  have  been  breaking  the  children's  hearts  by  refus 
ing  it.  So  Sheila's  mother  and  father,  her  grandmother 
and  her  aunt,  were  all  browbeaten  into  accepting  the 
invitations  that  Mrs.  Jerrems  had  been  browbeaten  into 
extending. 

Sheila  assumed  that  Mrs.  Jerrems  was  as  much  in 
terested  in  Mr.  Shakespeare's  success  as  she  was.  And 
she  rather  took  control  of  the  house,  saying  a  great  many 
"Pleases,"  but  uprooting  the  furniture  from  the  places 
it  had  occupied  till  they  had  become  almost  sacred.  She 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

had  half  of  the  drawing-room  cleared  of  chairs  and  the 
other  half  packed  with  rows  of  them.  She  commandeered 
two  of  Mrs.  Jerrems's  guest-room  sheets  (the  ones  with 
the  deep  hemstitching  and  the  swollen  initials).  These 
she  pinned  upon  a  rope  stretched  from  two  nails  driven 
into  the  walls,  with  conspicuous  damage  to  the  plaster, 
since  the  first  places  chosen  did  not  hold  the  nails — and 
came  out  with  them.  The  rope  was  the  clothes-line, 
which  was  needed  in  the  yard,  but  which  Tommy  had 
calmly  cut  down  at  Sheila's  requisition.  He  had  cut  his 
own  finger  incidentally  and  it  bled  copiously  on  the 
dining-room  drugget.  He  had  later  nailed  the  bandage 
to  the  wall  and  gone  overboard  with  the  stepladder, 
carrying  with  him  what  he  could  clutch  from  the  mantel 
piece  en  passant. 

This  was  not  the  only  damage;  item,  a  wonderful 
imitation  cut-glass  celery-jar  used  during  rehearsals  to 
represent  the  chalice  of  poison;  item,  several  gouges  in 
furniture,  which  Mrs.  Jerrems  would  almost  rather  have 
had  in  her  own  flesh  than  in  her  mahogany. 

But  eventually  the  evening  came  and  the  guests  went 
shyly  into  the  rows  of  chairs  that  made  Mrs.  Jerrems's 
drawing-room  look  like  a  funeral.  Mrs.  Jerrems  was 
worried,  too,  by  the  thought  of  entertaining  not  only 
the  child  of  stage  people,  but  an  actor  and  an  actress 
too  famous  to  be  disguised. 

She  wondered  what  her  preacher  would  say  of  it. 

And  she  could  not  feel  easy  about  the  spectacle  of  her 
son  standing  in  her  hallway  and  collecting  money  from 
callers  before  they  were  admitted. 

The  performance  was  a  torment.  The  strutting  chil 
dren  were  so  pompous  that  it  was  impossible  to  watch 
them  without  laughter,  yet  laughter  would  have  been 
heinously  cruel.  The  usual  relations  were  reversed: 
the  children  comported  themselves  with  vast  reverence 
for  a  great  work  of  art,  and  the  naughty  parents  sat 
smothering  their  snickers. 

20 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

The  voice  of  the  prompter  was  loud  in  the  wings  (the 
dining-room  and  hall),  and  the  action  was  suspended 
occasionally  while  the  actors  quarreled  with  the  prompter 
as  to  whose  turn  it  was  to  speak.  The  Sheila-ized 
Shakespeare  had  not  been  written  down,  and,  though 
the  play  was  greatly  compressed,  the  company  forgot  a 
good  deal  of  what  was  left.  In  her  innocence,  the  editress 
had  also  neglected  to  omit  certain  phrases  that  polite 
grown-ups  suppress.  These  came  forth  with  appalling 
effect. 

Laertes  was  so  enraptured  with  counting  and  recounting 
the  box-office  receipts  that  he  had  to  be  sent  for  on  two 
occasions.  Clyde  and  Eugene  came  to  blows  on  a  dis 
pute  extraneous  to  the  plot,  and  Dorothy,  as  the  mother, 
giggled  all  through  the  closet  scene  and  continued  to 
whinny  long  after  she  had  quaffed  the  fatal  cup.  Her 
last  words  were:  "Oh  Ha-ha-hamlet,  the  drink,  the 
d-d-drink!  I  am  poi-hoi-hoi-hoisoned."  This,  combined 
with  the  litter  of  corpses,  set  the  audience  into  a  roar 
of  laughter. 

Then  Sheila  entered  as  the  late-returning  Ophelia  and 
sobered  them  somehow  on  the  instant. 

Sheila  won  an  indisputable  triumph.  The  others  were 
at  best  children,  and  peculiarly  childish  in  the  roles  that 
have  swamped  all  but  the  largest  hulls.  But  Sheila,  for 
all  her  shortcomings  and  far-goings,  had  an  uncanny 
power.  Even  when  she  doubled  as  the  Ghost  and  tripped 
over  the  sheet  in  which  she  squeaked  and  gibbered  no 
body  laughed.  Her  girlish  treble,  trying  to  be  orotund, 
had  moments  of  gruesome  influence.  Her  Ophelia  was 
pathetically  winsome  in  the  earlier  scenes,  and  in  the 
mania  she  struck  notes  that  put  sudden  ice  into  the  blood. 
There  was  no  denying  her  a  dreadful  intuition  of  things 
she  could  not  know,  and  a  gift  for  interpreting  what  she 
had  never  felt. 

The  other  parents  were  ashamed  of  the  contrast.  As 
Mrs.  Jerrems  whispered  to  Mrs.  Vickery,  "One  thing  is 

21 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

certain,  your  Dorothy  and  my  boy  Tom  will  never  know 
how  to  act." 

"But,"  Mrs.  Vickery  whispered  back,  "that  doesn't 
prove  that  they  won't  go  on  the  stage." 

After  the  final  curtain  and  innumerable  curtain  calls 
the  play  was  ended  and  the  audience  filed  back  of  the 
sheet  to  lavish  its  homage  on  the  troupe. 

Mrs.  Jerrems  had  resolved  to  make  the  best  of  it,  once 
she  was  in  for  it;  and  tried  to  take  the  curse  off  the  profa- 
antion  of  collecting  money  from  her  guests  by  entertaining 
them  and  the  actors  at  a  little  supper.  Her  son  Tommy, 
always  the  financier,  felt  a  greater  profanation  in  the  idea 
of  charging  five  cents  admission  and  then  throwing  in  a 
supper  that  cost  fifty  cents  a  head.  But  Mrs.  Jerrems 
told  Tommy  to  take  care  of  his  end  of  the  enterprise  and 
she  would  take  care  of  hers.  And  she  reminded  him  that 
the  supper  would  cost  him  nothing.  He  consoled  himself 
with  the  reflection  that  "Women  got  no  head  for  business." 

The  juvenile  tragedians  ate  at  a  small  side-table,  and 
so  completely  relaxed  the  solemnity  they  had  revealed 
on  the  boards  that  the  elder  laity  chiefly  listened  and 
smiled  among  themselves. 

Mrs.  Jerrems  studied  Roger  Kemble  and  his  wife, 
"Miss"  Farren,  surreptitiously,  as  one  would  study  a 
Thibetan  or  a  Martian.  Knowing  in  advance  that  they 
were  actors,  she  felt  sure  that  she  found  in  them  odd  and 
characteristic  mannerisms,  for  it  is  easy  to  find  proofs 
when  we  have  the  facts.  And  once  a  man  is  known  to 
be  an  actor  it  is  easy  to  see  the  marks  of  the  grease-paint, 
though,  not  knowing  it,  one  is  as  likely  to  think  him  a 
preacher  or  a  prize-fighter  or  whatever  else  he  may 
suggest.  The  talk  of  Mr.  Kemble  and  Miss  Farren  was 
normal ;  their  manners  polished,  as  became  a  class  with  so 
much  leisure  and  culture.  But  Mrs.  Jerrems  felt  that 
she  could  see  the  glamour  of  the  footlights  in  everything 
they  said  or  did. 

22 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

She  had  seen  them  both  in  some  of  their  plays.  On  her 
excursions  to  New  York,  a  visit  to  their  theater  was  hardly 
less  important,  and  much  more  likely  to  be  accomplished, 
than  a  visit  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art.  When 
"Farren  and  Kemble,"  as  they  were  apt  to  be  called,  left 
New  York  for  a  tour  they  rarely  visited  Braywood,  or  if 
they  did  the  prices  at  the  opera-house  were  sure  to  be 
advanced  and  all  Braywood  put  on  its  best  clothes. 

For  one  thing,  Polly  Farren  and  Roger  Kemble  were 
pre-eminently  fashionable.  Their  plays  dealt  with  the 
fashionable  people  of  Europe  and  America.  They  were 
generally  English,  and  Roger  Kemble  was  likely  to  be 
Lord  Somebody,  and  Polly  Farren  at  least  an  Honorable 
Miss  This-or-That.  Or,  if  they  appeared  in  an  American 
manuscript,  they  usually  owned  country  houses  and 
yachts  and  had  titles  for  guests.  Their  clothes  were  sure 
to  be  a  sort  of  prospectus  of  the  next  season's  modes. 
Roger  Kemble  was  never  a  fop,  and  always  kept  on  the 
safe  side  of  ostentation,  yet  he  was  always  scrupulously 
a  pace  ahead  of  the  style  and  groomed  to  flawlessness.  He 
represented  Piccadilly  patterns  and  his  clock  was  about 
five  hours  ahead  of  New  York  time.  Polly  was  a  little 
braver.  She  was  beautiful,  lithe,  and  dashing,  and  she 
was  not  afraid  of  anything  that  French  taste  and  caprice 
might  prophesy. 

Everybody  knew,  too,  that  Polly  Farren  and  Roger 
Kemble  "went  with"  the  smartest  people.  Those  who 
knew  they  were  married  knew  that  their  summer  cottage 
was  among  the  handsomest  in  the  Long  Island  groups. 
Their  manners  were  smart,  too,  with  just  the  right  flip 
pancy  and  just  the  right  restraint.  It  was  a  school  of 
etiquette  to  see  them  enter  a  drawing-room  or  sip  tea 
importantly,  or  tear  a  passion  to  embroidery. 

Polly  had  made  her  first  sensation  in  a  play  in  which 
she  was  supposed  to  have  imbibed  more  champagne  than 
her  pretty  head  could  carry.  The  critics  raved  over  her 
demonstration  of  the  fine  art  of  being  tipsy  in  a  ladylike 

23 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

manner.  Roger  Kemble's  rdles  frequently  compelled  him 
to  be  "as  drunk  as  a  lord,"  and  young  men  of  bibulosity 
tried  to  remember  him  in  their  cups. 

So  now  Mrs.  Jerrems,  watching  the  husband  and  wife 
at  the  homely  task  of  stowing  away  a  small-city  supper, 
seemed  to  be  watching  a  scene  on  the  stage.  She  dreaded 
them,  yet  she  tried  to  copy  them.  Faithful  church- 
member  that  she  was,  she  abhorred  the  stage  theoretically, 
and  practically  followed  its  influence  more  than  the 
church's.  She  kept  taking  notes  on  Polly  Farren's  cos 
tume  and  carriage,  and  her  husband  would  later  be  ad 
monished  that  many,  many  things  he  did  were  pitiably 
below  the  standard  of  Roger  Kemble. 

The  Kembles  were  not  unaware  of  the  inspection  they 
underwent.  They  were  used  enough  to  it,  yet  it  irked 
them  in  this  small  community  whither  they  had  retired 
during  the  Holy  Week  closing  of  their  company.  They 
were  glad  to  be  gone  as  soon  as  they  could  decently  take 
their  leave  and  carry  off  their  wonder-child. 

Sheila  was  so  exhausted  by  her  labors  as  editress,  di 
rectress,  and  actress  that  she  had  yawned  even  in  the 
midst  of  her  prettiest  thank-yous  for  the  praise  she 
battened  on.  On  the  way  she  clung  to  her  father's  hand 
in  a  sleep-walking  drowse,  and  lurched  into  him  until 
he  caught  her  into  his  bosom  and  carried  her  home  and 
up  the  stairs  to  her  bed.  She  slept  while  her  mother  un 
dressed  her,  and  there  was  no  waking  her  to  her  prayers. 
Even  in  her  heavy  slumbers  she  fell  into  an  attitude  of 
such  grace  that  it  seemed  almost  conscious. 

Roger  and  Polly  looked  at  her  and  smiled;  and  shook 
their  heads  over  her. 

"She  is  hopelessly  ours,"  said  Kemble.  "I'm  afraid 
there'll  be  no  keeping  her  off  the  stage  when  she  grows 
up." 

Kemble  was  in  his  bath-robe  in  the  bath-room  before 

24 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

his  wife,  who  had  not  moved  from  her  posture  of  con 
templation,  suddenly  thought  aloud: 

"After  all,  why  not?" 

Kemble  paused  with  the  tooth-paste  tube  above  his 
tooth-brush  to  query,  "Why  not  what?" 

"What  better  chance  is  there  for  a  woman?" 

Kemble  moved  close  enough  to  her  to  nudge  her  out  of 
her  muse  and  demand  again,  "What  woman  are  you 
talking  about?" 

"That  one,"  said  Polly.  "That  little  understudy  of 
life.  You  say  we  sha'n't  be  able  to  keep  her  off  the  stage. 
Why  should  we  try  to?" 

"Well,  knowing  what  we  do  of  the  stage,  my  dear, — it 
isn't  exactly  the  ideal  place  for  a  girl,  now  is  it?" 

"No,  of  course  not.  But  where  is  the  ideal  place  for  a 
girl?  Is  there  such  a  thing?  We  know  all  too  well  how 
much  suffering  and  anxiety  and  disappointment  and 
wickedness  there  is  on  the  stage ;  but  where  will  you  go  to 
escape  it?  Look  at  the  society  wives  and  daughters  we 
know,  in  town  and  out  in  the  country.  Look  at  the  poor 
girls  in  the  shops  and  factories." 

"That's  so,"  Kemble  spluttered  across  his  shuttling 
tooth-brush.  "I  rather  fancy  a  smaller  city  is  better." 

His  wife  laughed  softly :  "You  ought  to  have  heard  what 
I've  been  hearing  about  this  town!  You'd  think  it  was 
the  home  of  all  villainy.  There's  enough  scandal  and 
tragedy  here  to  fill  a  hundred  volumes.  There  are  prob 
lem-plays  here — among  busy  church-members,  too — that 
make  Ibsen  read  like  a  copy  of  St.  Nicholas." 

She  put  out  the  light  in  Sheila's  room  and  went  into 
her  own,  lighted  herself  a  cigarette  from  the  cigar  her 
husband  had  left  in  her  hair-pin  tray,  and  sat  down  be 
fore  the  cold  radiator  as  before  a  fireplace  to  talk  about 
life.  People  were  all  r61es  to  her  and  their  histories  were 
scenarios  that  interested  her  more  or  less  as  she  saw  her 
self  playing  them. 

"When  I  look  around  at  my  old  school  friends  and  rel- 
.3  25 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

atr/es  off  the  stage,"  she  said,  "I  can't  see  that  they've 
found  any  recipe  for  happiness.  Clara  Gaines  is  a  do 
mestic  soul  and  her  husband  is  a  druggist,  but  he  leaves 
her  to  be  domestic  all  by  herself,  and  she  tells  me  he  never 
spends  a  minute  at  home  that  he  can  spend  outside. 
Ella  Westover  has  divorced  two  husbands  in  Terre 
Haute  already.  Mar j  one  Cranford  tells  me  that  her 
home  town  out  in — in  the  Middle  West  somewhere — has 
a  fast  set  that  makes  the  Tenderloin  look  stupid.  Clarice 
— What's  her  name  now? — well,  she  has  married  an 
awfully  good  man,  but  she  has  to  wheedle  every  cent  she 
gets  out  of  him  or  cheat  him  out  of  it,  and  she  says  she 
wants  to  scream  at  his  hypocrisy.  She  thinks  she'll  run 
off  and  leave  him  any  day  now." 

Kemble  drew  a  chair  to  her  side  and  put  his  feet  on 
the  radiator  alongside  hers.  He  found  his  cigar  out, 
and  relighted  it  with  difficulty  from  her  cigarette  as 
he  laughed: 

"Polly  is  a  bit  of  a  pessimist  to-night,  eh?  Is  it  the 
quietness  of  this  little  burg?  I  was  rather  enjoying  the 
peace  and  repose  and  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

"So  was  I.  But  that's  because  it's  a  change  for  us  to 
have  an  evening  off.  Think  of  the  women  who  never 
have  anything  else.  They're  not  happy,  Roger.  You 
can't  find  one  of  them  that  will  say  she  is." 

"You  don't  fancy  small-town  respectability  for  your 
daughter,  then?" 

"  I  hope  she'll  be  respectable.  But  there's  so  little  real 
respectability  in  being  just  dull  and  bored  to  death,  in 
just  sitting  round  and  waiting  for  some  man  to  come  home, 
in  having  nothing  to  spend  except  what  you  can  steal  out 
of  his  trousers  or  squeeze  out  of  an  allowance.  I'd  rather 
have  Sheila  an  actress  than  a  toadstool  or  a  parasite  on 
some  man.  She  has  one  of  those  wild-bird  natures  that 
I  had.  The  safest  thing  for  her  is  the  freedom  and  a 
lot  of  work  and  admiration,  and  a  chance  to  act.  The 
stage  is  no  paradise,  the  Lord  knows,  but  the  first  woman 

26 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

that  ever  knew  freedom  was  the  actress.  These  votes- 
for-women  rebels  are  all  clamoring  now  for  what  we 
actresses  have  always  had.  Would  it  break  your  heart, 
Roger,  if  our  little  Sheila  went  on  the  stage?" 

Kemble  followed  a  slow  cloud  of  smoke  with  the  soft 
words: 

"My  mother  was  an  actress." 

He  drew  in  more  smoke  and  let  it  curl  forth  luxuri 
ously  as  he  murmured,  "And  my  wife  is  an  actress." 

It  would  have  surprised  the  Farren-Kemble  following  to 
see  those  flippant  comedians  so  domesticated  and  holding  a 
solemn  ante-vitam  inquest  over  the  future  of  their  child. 
But  a  father  is  a  father  and  a  mother  a  mother  the  world 
over. 

Polly  put  out  her  hand  and  squeezed  Roger's,  and 
he  lifted  hers  and  touched  it  to  his  lips  with  an  old 
comedy  grace.  She  drew  the  two  hands  back  across 
the  little  gulf  between  them  and  returned  the  com 
pliment,  then  rested  her  cheek  on  their  conjoined  fingers 
and  pondered: 

"We  could  save  Sheila  the  hardest  part  of  it.  She 
wouldn't  have  to  hang  round  the  agencies  or  bribe  any 
brute  with  herself,  or  barnstorm  with  any  cheap  company. 
And  she  wouldn't  have  to  go  on  the  stage  by  way  of  any 
scandal." 

Roger  growled  comfortably:  "That's  so.  She  could 
step  right  into  the  old-established  firm  of  Farren  &  Kem 
ble.  The  main  thing  for  us  to  see  is  that  she  is  a  good 
actress — as  her  mother  was  and  her  two  grandmothers 
and  three  of  her  four  great  -  grandmothers,  and  so  on 
back." 

Polly  amended:  "She  mustn't  go  on  the  stage  too 
soon,  though — or  too  late;  and  she  must  have  a  good 
education — French  and  German,  and  travel  abroad  and 
all  that." 

"Then  that's  settled,"  Kemble  laughed.  "And  as 
soon  as  we've  got  her  all  prepared  and  established  and 

27 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

on  the  way  to  big  success,  she'll  fall  in  love  with  some 
blamed  cub  who'll  drag  her  to  his  home  in  Skaneateles." 

"Probably;   but  she'll  come  back." 

"All  right.  And  now,  having  written  Sheila's  life  for  her 
to  rewrite,  let's  go  to  bed.  There'll  be  no  sleeping  in  this 
noisy  house  in  the  morning." 


CHAPTER  IV 

was  a  tremendous  week  for  the  children  of 
Bray  wood.  As  some  quiet  bayou  harbors  for  a  time 
a  few  birds  of  passage  restlessly  resting  before  they  fly 
on  into  the  sky,  so  the  domestic  poultry  of  Braywood  was 
stirred  by  the  Kemble  wild  fowl. 

Four  generations  were  gathered  at  the  Burbage  home. 
Sheila's  great-grandmother  was  always  there  at  the  home 
of  Clyde  Burbage,  senior,  who  had  fallen  out  of  the  line 
of  strollers,  and  become  a  merchant.  His  wife's  mother, 
who  was  Polly  Farren's  mother,  too,  was  there  for  a 
visit.  The  old  lady  and  the  older  lady  had  left  the  stage 
and  now  spent  their  hours  in  regretting  the  decadence  of 
earlier  glories,  as  their  elders  had  done  before  them,  and 
as  their  children  would  do  in  their  turn. 

The  Kembles  and  Farrens  and  Burbages  were  all  peers 
in  the  aristocracy  of  the  theater,  which,  like  every  other 
world,  has  its  princes  and  peasants,  its  merchants  and 
vagabonds,  saints  and  sinners. 

None  of  this  line  dated  back,  however,  to  the  time 
when  Holy  Week  was  a  period  of  industry  for  the  churchly 
actors  who  prepared  their  miracles  and  moralities  for 
the  edification  of  the  people.  Nowadays  Holy  Week  is 
a  time  when  most  of  the  theaters  close,  and  the  others 
entertain  diminished  audiences  and  troupes  whose  enthu 
siasm  is  diminished  by  the  halving  of  their  salaries. 

It  is  a  period  when  so  many  people  desire  to  be  seen 
in  church  or  fear  to  be  seen  in  the  playhouse,  that  the 
receipts  drop  off  amazingly,  though  the  same  people  feel 

29 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

it  no  sin  to  crowd  the  same  theater  the  week  before  or 
the  week  after  the  Passion  sennight. 

Sometimes  a  play  is  strong  enough  in  draught  to  pack 
the  theater  in  spite  of  the  anniversary.  This  year  the 
Farren-Kemble  play  was  not  quite  successful  enough 
to  justify  the  risk  of  half-filled  auditoriums.  So  they 
"rested." 

But  to  the  children,  as  to  the  other  animals,  there  are 
no  holy  days,  or  rather  no  unholy  days.  The  children  of 
Braywood  made  a  theatrical  week  of  it,  and  Sheila  reveled 
in  her  opportunity.  She  had  an  audience  everywhere  she 
went. 

The  other  children  stood  about  her  and  wondered. 
She  fascinated  them,  and  they  were  eager  to  do  as  she 
bade,  though  they  felt  a  certain  uneasiness;  as  if  they  had 
wished  for  a  fairy  queen  to  play  with  and  had  got  their 
wish. 

The  other  children  commanded  in  their  own  specialties 
and  in  their  turns.  At  outdoor  romps  and  sports  Clyde 
Burbage  led  the  way,  and  endangered  future  limbs  or 
present  lives  by  his  fearless  banter.  At  household  games 
with  dolls  and  diseases  Dorothy  had  a  matronly  authority 
and  Sheila  was  like  a  novice.  In  hospital  games,  Dorothy, 
the  head  nurse,  must  show  her  how  babies  should  be 
handled,  punished,  and  medicined. 

It  should  be  set  down  to  Sheila's  credit  that  she  was 
meek  as  Moses  in  the  presence  of  domestic  genius.  But 
it  must  be  added  that  the  things  she  learned  from  Dorothy 
were  likely  to  be  exploited  later  in  some  drama  where 
Sheila  took  full  sway.  In  Dorothy's  games  the  dolls  al 
ways  recovered  when  Dr.  Eugene  was  called  in  with  his 
grandmother's  spectacles  on.  In  Sheila's  dramas  the  dolls 
almost  always  perished  in  agony,  while  the  desperate 
mother  clung  to  the  embarrassed  doctor,  at  the  same  time 
screaming  to  him  to  save  the  child  and  whispering  him 
to  pronounce  it  dead. 

Roger  Kemble  happened  to  be  passing  Mrs.  Vickery's 

3° 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

front  yard  during  one  of  these  tragedies,  and  paused 
to  watch  it  across  the  fence  while  Mrs.  Vickery  attended 
from  the  porch.  One  of  those  startling  unconscious  scan 
dals  in  which  children's  plays  abound  was  suddenly 
developed,  and  Roger  moved  on  rapidly  while  Mrs. 
Vickery  vanished  into  the  house. 

All  the  while  the  young  Shakespeare  of  Braywood 
wrought  upon  his  play  for  Sheila.  But  the  moment  he 
thought  he  had  it  perfected,  he  would  hear  her  toss  off 
one  of  the  dramatic  principles  that  she  had  overheard 
her  father  and  mother  discussing  after  some  rehearsal. 
Then  Eugene  would  blush  to  realize  that  his  drama 
had  violated  this  dictum  and  was  unworthy  of  the  great 
actress.  And  he  would  steal  away  to  unravel  his  fabric 
and  knit  it  up  again. 

At  last  it  began  to  shape  itself  according  to  her 
ideals  as  he  had  gleaned  them.  He  sat  up  finishing 
it  until  he  was  sent  to  bed  for  the  fourth  time,  then 
he  worked  in  his  room  till  his  mother  knocked  on  his 
door  and  ordered  his  light  out  and  forbade  him  to 
leave  his  bed  again. 

He  waited  till  he  knew  that  his  parents  were  asleep, 
then  he  cautiously  renewed  his  light  and,  sitting  up  in  bed, 
wrote  with  that  grasshopper-legged  finger  of  his  till  he 
could  keep  his  eyes  ajar  no  longer.  Then  he  held  one 
eye  open  with  his  left  hand  till  the  hand  itself  went  to 
sleep.  He  never  knew  it  when  his  head  rolled  over  to  the 
pillow.  He  knew  nothing  more  till  he  woke,  shivering,  to 
find  the  daylight  in  the  room  and  the  light  still  burning 
expensively. 

He  put  out  the  light  and  worked  till  breakfast  and 
his  play  were  ready.  After  he  had  spooned  up  his  por 
ridge  and  chewed  down  his  second  glass  of  milk  he  made 
haste  toward  Clyde  Burbage's  house.  He  hesitated  at 
the  nearest  corner  till  he  found  courage  to  proceed.  He 
mounted  the  steps  with  his  precious  manuscript  buttoned 
against  his  swinging  heart.  He  rang  the  bell.  Mrs. 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Burbage  came  to  the  door,  and  he  peeled  his  cap  from  his 
burning  head: 

"Is — is  Clyde  at  home,  Mis'  Burbage?" 

Mrs.  Burbage  was  surprised  at  the  formality  of  the 
visit.  Boys  usually  stood  outside  and  whistled  for  Clyde 
or  called  "Hoo-oo!"  or  "Hay,  Clyde— oh,  Cly-ud!"  till 
he  answered.  In  fact,  he  had  only  recently  answered  just 
such  a  signal  from  another  boy  and  slammed  the  door 
after  him. 

When  Eugene  learned  that  Clyde  was  abroad  he  made 
as  if  to  depart,  then  paused  and,  with  a  violent  careless 
ness,  mumbled,  "I  don't  suppose  Sheila  is  home,  either?" 

"Sheila?  Oh  no!  She  and  her  father  and  mother  left 
on  the  midnight  train." 

"Is  that  so?"  said  Eugene  as  casually  as  if  he  had  just 
learned  that  all  his  relatives  were  dead  or  that  he  had 
overslept  Christmas. 

He  tried  to  make  a  brave  exit,  but  he  was  so  forlorn 
that  Mrs.  Burbage  forgot  to  smile  as  grown-ups  smile  at 
the  big  tragedies  of  the  little  folk.  She  watched  him 
struggling  overlong  at  the  gate-latch.  She  saw  him 
break  into  a  frantic  run  for  home  as  soon  as  he  had  gained 
the  sidewalk.  Then  she  went  inside,  shaking  her  head 
and  thinking  the  same  words  that  were  clamoring  in  the 
boy's  sick  heart: 

"Oh,  Sheila!  Sheila!" 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  big  young  man  with  the  shoulders  of  a  bureau 
would  never  have  been  taken  for  a  student  if  he 
had  not  been  crossing  the  campus  with  a  too  small  cap 
precariously  perched  on  his  too  much  hair,  and  if  he  had 
not  been  swinging  a  strapful  of  those  thin,  weary-worn 
volumes  that  look  to  be  text-books  and  not  novels.  The 
eye-glasses  set  on  his  young  nose  mainly  accented  his 
youth.  If  he  had  not  depended  on  them  he  would  have 
made  a  splendid  center  rush.  Instead,  he  was  driven  to 
the  'varsity  crew,  where  he  won  more  glory  than  in  the 
class-room.  He  paused  before  a  ground-floor  window  of 
the  oldest  of  the  old  dormitories.  That  window-seat  as 
usual  displayed  the  slim  and  gangling  form  of  a  young  man 
who  was  usually  to  be  found  there  stretched  out  on  his 
stomach  and  reading  or  writing  with  solemn  absorption. 
It  was  necessary  to  call  him  repeatedly  before  he  came 
back  from  the  mist  he  surrounded  himself  with: 

' '  Hay !  'Gene !    Oh,  Vick !    'Gene  Vickery !    Hay  you !' ' 

"Hay  yourself!     Oh,  hey-o,  Bret  Winfield,  h'are  you?" 

"Rotten!     Say — you  going  to  the  theater  to-night?" 

"I  usually  do.     What's  the  play?"  . 

"'A  Friend  in  Need.'     Ran  six  months  in  New  York." 

"All  right,  I'll  go." 

"Better  get  a  seat  under  cover  of  the  balcony." 

"Why?" 

"Looks  like  a  big  night  to-night.  The  Freshmen  are 
going  to  bust  up  the  show." 

"Really?    Why?" 

Vickery  was  only  a  post-graduate,  in  his  first  year  at 

33 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Leroy  University.  He  had  gone  through  the  home-town 
schools  and  a  preparatory  school  and  a  smaller  college, 
before  he  had  moved  on  to  Leroy  to  earn  a  Ph.D.  He  had 
long  ago  given  up  his  ambitions  to  replace  Shakespeare. 
So  now  he  asked  in  his  ignorance  why  the  Freshmen  of 
Leroy  must  break  up  the  play.  And  Winfield  answered 
from  his  knowledge: 

"Because  about  this  time  of  year  the  Freshman  class 
always  busts  up  a  show.  It's  one  of  the  sacredest  tradi 
tions  of  our  dear  old  Alum  Mater.  Last  year's  Freshies 
put  a  big  musical  comedy  on  the  blink.  Kidnapped  half 
the  chorus  girls.  This  year  there's  no  burlesque  in 
view,  so  the  cubs  are  reduced  to  pulling  down  a  high 
comedy." 

"Won't  the  faculty  do  anything  about  it?" 

"  Faculty  won't  know  anything  about  it  till  the  morning 
papers  tell  how  many  policemen  were  lost  and  how  much 
damage  was  done  to  the  theater.  If  you're  going,  either 
take  an  umbrella  or  sit  under  the  balcony,  for  there  will 
be  doings." 

"I'll  be  there,  Bret." 

"I  wish  I  could  have  you  with  me,  but  a  gang  of  us 
Seniors  have  taken  a  front  box  together.  S'long!" 

"S'long!" 

Vickery  went  back  to  his  text-book.  He  was  to  be  a 
professor  of  Greek.  He  had  almost  forgotten  that  he  had 
ever  fallen  in  love  with  an  actress.  He  had  kept  no  track 
of  stage  history. 

His  acquaintance  with  Bret  Winfield  had  been  casual 
until  his  sister  Dorothy  came  on  to  spend  a  few  days  near 
her  brother.  Dorothy  had  grown  up  to  be  the  sort  of 
woman  her  childhood  prophesied — big,  beautiful,  placid, 
very  noble  at  her  best  and  stupid  at  her  worst.  Her  big 
eyes  were  the  Homeric  "ox-eyes,"  and  Eugene  in  the  first 
flush  of  his  first  Greek  had  called  her  thence  Bo-opis, 
which  he  shortened  later  to  "  Bo." 

The  bo-optic  Dorothy  made  a  profound  impression  on 

34 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Bret  Winfield,  and  he  cultivated  Eugene  thereafter  on  her 
account.  He  had  a  rival  in  the  scientific  school,  Jim 
Greeley,  a  fellow-townsman  of  Winfield's.  Greeley's 
matter-of-fact  soul  was  completely  congenial  to  Dorothy, 
but  the  two  young  men  hated  each  other  with  great 
dignity,  and  Dorothy  reveled  in  their  rivalry.  She  was 
quite  forgotten,  however,  when  matters  of  real  college  mo 
ment  were  under  way — such  as  the  Freshman  assault  on 
the  drama. 

The  news  of  the  riot-to-be  percolated  through  the  two 
thousand  students  without  a  word  reaching  the  ears  of  the 
faculty  or  the  officers  of  the  theater.  There  was  no  reason 
to  expect  trouble  on  this  occasion.  There  had  been  no 
football  or  baseball  or  other  contest  to  excite  the  students. 
They  made  a  boisterous  audience  before  the  curtain  rose — 
but  then  they  always  did.  They  called  to  each  other  from 
crag  to  crag.  They  whistled  and  stamped  in  unison  when 
the  curtain  was  a  moment  late;  but  that  was  to  be  ex 
pected  in  college  towns.  Strangely,  students  have  been 
always  and  everywhere  rioters. 

The  first  warning  the  audience  had  of  unusual  purposes 
came  when  a  round  of  uproarious  applause  greeted  a 
comedian's  delivery  of  a  bit  of  very  cheap  wit  which  had 
been  left  in  because  the  author  declined  to  waste  time 
polishing  the  seat-banging  part  of  his  first  act.  In  this 
country  an  audience  that  is  extremely  displeased  does  not 
hiss  or  boo;  it  applauds  sarcastically  and  persistently. 
The  poor  actor  who  had  aimed  to  hurry  past  the  line 
found  himself  held  up  by  the  ironic  hand-clapping.  When 
he  tried  to  go  on,  it  broke  out  anew. 

An  actor  cannot  disclaim  or  apologize  for  the  lines  he 
has  to  speak,  however  his  own  prosperities  are  involved  in 
them.  So  poor  Mr.  Tuell  had  now  to  stand  and  perspire 
while  the  line  he  had  begged  the  author  to  delete  provoked 
the  tempest. 

Whenever  the  fuming  comedian  opened  his  mouth  to 
speak  the  applause  drowned  him.  It  soon  fell  into  a 

35 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

rhythm  of  one-two,  one-two-three,  one-two,  one-two- 
three.  Tuell  could  only  wait  till  the  claque  had  grown 
weary  of  its  own  reproof.  Then  he  went  on  to  his  next 
feeble  witticism,  another  play  upon  words  so  childish 
that  it  brought  forth  cries  of,  "Naughty,  naughty!" 

The  other  members  of  the  company  gathered  in  the 
wings,  as  uncomfortable  as  a  band  of  early  martyrs  waiting 
their  turns  to  appear  before  the  lions.  To  most  of  them 
this  was  their  first  encounter  with  a  mutinous  audience. 

Audiences  are  usually  a  chaos  of  warring  tastes  and 
motives  which  must  somehow  be  given  focus  and  unity 
by  the  actors.  That  was  the  hardest  part  of  the  day's 
work — to  get  the  house  together.  To-night  they  must 
face  a  ready-made  audience  with  a  mind  of  its  own — and 
that  hostile. 

The  actors  watched  the  famous  "first  old  woman," 
Mrs.  John  Vining,  sail  out  with  the  bravery  of  a  captive 
empress  marching  down  a  Roman  street  in  chains.  She 
was  greeted  with  harsh  cries  of,  "Grandma!"  and,  "Oh, 
boys,  Granny's  came!" 

Mrs.  Vining  smiled  indulgently  and  went  on  with  her 
lines.  The  applause  broke  out  and  continued  while  she 
and  Mr.  Tuell  conducted  a  dumb-show.  Then  an  abrupt 
silence  fell  just  in  time  to  emphasize  the  banality  of  her 
next  speech. 

"You  ask  of  Claribel?  Speaking  of  angels,  here  she 
comes  now." 

At  the  sound  of  her  name  the  actress  summoned  clutched 
the  cross-piece  of  the  flat  that  hid  her  from  the  audience. 
She  longed  for  courage  to  run  away.  But  actors  do  not 
run  away,  and  she  made  ready  to  dance  out  on  the  stage 
and  gush  her  brilliant  first  line:  "Oh,  auntie,  there  you 
are.  I've  been  looking  for  you  everywhere." 

Sheila  had  always  hated  the  entrance  because  of  its 
bustling  unimportance.  It  was  exciting  enough  to-night. 
No  sooner  had  Mrs.  Vining  announced  her  name  than 
there  was  a  salvo  of  joy  from  the  mob. 

36 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"Oh,  girls,  here  comes  Claribel!" 

Some  one  stood  up  and  yelped,  "Three hearty  cheers  and 
a  tigress  for  Claribel." 

Sheila  fell  back  into  the  wings  as  the  clamor  smote  her. 
But  she  had  been  seen  and  admired.  There  was  a  hurri 
cane  of  protest  against  her  retreat : 

"Come  on  in,  Claribel;  the  water's  fine!"  "Don't 
leave  the  old  farm,  Claribel;  we  need  you!"  "Peekaboo! 
I  see  You  Hiding  behind  the  chair." 

Each  of  the  mutineers  shrieked  something  that  he 
thought  was  funny,  and  laughed  at  it  without  heeding 
what  else  was  shouted.  The  result  was  deafening. 

Eugene  Vickery's  heart  was  set  aswing  at  the  glimpse 
of  Sheila  Kemble.  The  sight  of  her  name  on  the  pro 
gram  had  revived  his  boyhood  memories  of  her.  He 
rose  to  protest  against  the  hazing  of  a  young  girl,  espe 
cially  one  whose  tradition  was  so  sweet  in  his  remem 
brance,  but  he  was  in  the  back  of  the  house  and  his  cry 
of  "Shame!"  was  lost  in  the  uproar,  merely  adding  to  it 
instead  of  quelling  it. 

Bret  Winfield  in  a  stage  box  had  seen  Sheila  in  the 
wings  for  some  minutes  before  her  entrance.  He  knew 
nothing  of  her  except  that  her  beauty  pleased  him  thor 
oughly  and  that  he  was  sorry  to  see  how  scared  she  was 
when  she  retreated. 

He  saw  also  how  plucky  she  was,  for,  angered  by  the 
boorish  unchivalry  of  the  mob,  she  marched  forth  again 
like  a  young  Amazon.  At  the  full  sight  of  her  the  Fresh 
men  united  in  a  huge  noise  of  kisses  and  murmurs  of, 
"Yum-yum!"  and  cries  of,  "Me  for  Claribel!"  "Say, 
that's  some  gal!"  "Name  and  address,  please!"  "I 
saw  her  first!"  "Second  havers!"  "Mamma,  buy  me 
that!"  She  was  called  a  peach,  a  peacherino,  a  pippin,  a 
tangerine,  a  swell  skirt — anything  that  occurred  to  the 
uninspired. 

Sheila  felt  as  if  she  were  struck  by  a  billow.  Her  own 
color  swept  past  the  bounds  of  the  stationary  blushes  she 

37 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

had  painted  on  her  cheeks.  She  came  out  again  and  be 
gan  her  line:  "Oh,  auntie — " 

It  was  as  if  echo  had  gone  into  hysterics.  Two  hundred 
voices  mocked  her:  "Oh,  auntie!"  "Oh,  auntie!"  "Oh, 
auntie!" 

She  wanted  to  laugh,  she  wanted  to  cry,  she  wanted 
to  run,  she  wanted  to  fight.  She  wished  that  the  whole 
throng  had  but  one  ear,  that  she  might  box  it. 

The  stage-manager  was  shrieking  from  the  wings: 
"Go  on!  Don't  stop  for  anything!" 

She  continued  her  words  with  an  effect  of  pantomime. 
The  responses  were  made  against  a  surf  of  noise. 

Then  Eric  Folwell,  who  played  the  hero,  came  on. 
He  was  handsome,  and  knew  it.  He  was  a  trifle  over- 
graceful,  and  his  evening  coat  fitted  his  perfect  figure 
almost  too  perfectly.  He  was  met  with  pitiless  im 
plications  of  effeminacy.  "Oh,  Clarice!"  '"Say,  Lizzie, 
are  you  busy?"  "Won't  somebody  slap  the  brute  on 
the  wrist?"  "My  Gawd!  ain't  he  primeval?"  "Oh, 
you  cave-girl!" 

As  if  this  were  not  shattering  enough,  some  of  the 
students  had  provided  themselves  with  bags  of  those  little 
torpedoes  that  children  throw  on  the  Fourth  of  July. 
One  of  these  exploded  at  Folwell's  feet.  At  the  utterly 
unexpected  noise  he  jumped,  as  a  far  braver  man  might 
have  done,  taken  thus  unawares. 

This  simply  enraptured  the  young  mob,  and  showers  of 
torpedoes  fell  about  the  stage.  It  fairly  snowed  explosives. 
The  gravel  scattered  in  all  directions.  A  pebble  struck 
Sheila  on  the  cheek.  It  smarted  only  a  trifle,  but  the 
pain  was  as  nothing  to  the  sacrilege. 

Somehow  the  play  struggled  on  to  the  cue  for  the  en 
trance  of  the  heroine  of  the  play.  Miss  Zelma  Griffen 
was  the  leading  woman.  She  was  supposed  to  arrive  in  a 
taxicab,  and  the  warning  "honk"  of  it  delighted  the 
audience.  She  was  followed  on  by  a  red-headed  chauffeur 
who  asked  for  his  fare,  which  she  borrowed  from  the 

38 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

hero,  then  passed  to  the  chauffeur,  who  thanked  her 
and  made  his  exit. 

Miss  Griffen  was  a  somewhat  sophisticated  actress  with 
a  large  record  in  college  boys.  While  she  waited  for  her 
cue,  she  had  cannily  decided  to  appease  the  mob  by 
adopting  a  tone  of  good-fellowship.  She  had  also  pro 
vided  herself  with  a  rosette  of  the  college  colors.  She 
waved  it  at  the  audience  and  smiled. 

This  was  a  false  note.  It  was  resented  as  a  familiarity 
and  a  presumption.  This  same  college  had  rotten- 
egged  an  actor  some  years  before  for  wearing  a  'varsity 
sweater  on  the  stage.  It  greeted  Miss  Griffen  with  a 
storm  of  angry  protest,  together  with  a  volley  of  torpedoes. 

Miss  Griffen,  completely  nonplussed,  gaped  for  her 
line,  could  not  remember  a  word  of  it,  then  ran  off  the 
stage,  leaving  Sheila  and  Mrs.  Vining  and  Tuell  to  take 
up  the  fallen  torch  and  improvise  the  scene.  Sheila  made 
the  effort,  asked  herself  the  questions  Miss  Griffen  should 
have  asked  her,  and  answered  them.  It  was  her  religion 
as  an  actress  never  to  let  the  play  stop. 

With  all  her  wits  askew,  she  soon  had  herself  snarled 
up  in  a  tangle  of  syntax  in  which  she  floundered  hope 
lessly.  The  student  body  railed  at  her: 

"Oh,  you  grammar!     'Rah,  'rah,  'rah,  night  school!" 

This  insult  was  too  much  for  the  girl.  She  lost  every 
trace  of  self-control. 

All  this  time  Bret  Winfield  had  grown  angrier  and 
angrier.  Bear-baiting  was  one  thing;  but  dove-baiting 
was  too  cowardly  even  for  mob-action,  too  unfair  even  for 
a  night  of  sports,  unpardonable  even  in  Freshmen.  He 
was  thrilled  with  a  chivalrous  impulse  to  rush  to  the  de 
fense  of  Sheila,  whose  angry  beauty  had  inflamed  him 
further. 

He  stood  up  in  the  proscenium  box  and  tried  to  call  for 
fair  play.  He  was  unheard  and  unseen;  all  eyes  were 
fastened  on  the  stage  where  the  fluttering  actress  besought 
the  howling  stage-manager  to  throw  her  the  line  louder. 

39 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Winfield  determined  to  make  himself  both  seen  and 
heard.  Fellow  Seniors  in  the  box  caught  at  his  coat-tails, 
but  he  wrenched  loose  and,  putting  a  foot  over  the  rail, 
stepped  to  the  apron  of  the  stage.  In  his  struggle  he  lost 
his  eye-glasses.  They  fell  into  the  footlight  trough,  and 
he  was  nearly  blind. 

Sheila,  who  stood  close  at  hand,  recoiled  in  panic  at 
the  sight  of  this  unheard-of  intrusion.  The  rampart 
of  the  footlights  had  always  stood  as  a  barrier  between 
Sheila  and  the  audience,  an  impassable  parapet.  To 
night  she  saw  it  overpassed,  and  she  watched  the  invader 
with  much  the  same  horror  that  a  nun  would  experience 
at  seeing  a  soldier  enter  a  convent  window. 

Winfield  advanced  with  hesitant  valor  and  frowned 
fiercely  at  the  dazzling  glare  that  beat  upward  from  the 
footlights. 

He  was  recognized  at  once  as  the  famous  stroke-oar 
of  the  crew  that  had  defeated  the  historic  rivals  of  Gran- 
tham  University.  He  was  hailed  with  tempest. 

Sheila  knew  neither  his  fame  nor  his  mission.  She  felt 
that  he  was  about  to  lay  hands  on  her;  all  things  were 
possible  from  such  barbarians.  Her  knees  weakened. 
She  turned  to  retreat  and  clung  to  a  table  for  support. 

Suddenly  she  had  a  defender.  From  the  wings  the  big 
actor  who  had  played  the  taxicab-driver  dashed  forward 
with  a  roar  of  anger  and  let  drive  at  Winfield's  face. 
Winfield  heard  the  onset,  turned  and  saw  the  fist  coming. 
There  was  no  time  to  explain  his  chivalric  motive.  He 
ducked  and  the  blow  grazed  his  cheek,  but  the  actor's 
impetus  caught  him  off  his  balance  and  hustled  him  on 
backward  till  one  foot  slid  down  among  the  footlights. 
Three  electric  bulbs  were  smashed  as  he  went  overboard 
into  the  orchestra. 

He  almost  broke  the  backs  of  two  unprepared  viola- 
players,  but  they  eased  his  fall.  He  caromed  off  their 
shoulder-blades  into  the  multifarious  instruments  of  the 
"man  in  the  tin-shop."  One  foot  thumped  bass-drum 

40 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

with  a  mighty  plop;  the  other  sent  a  cymbal  clanging. 
His  clutching  hands  set  up  a  riot  of  "effects,"  and  he  lay 
on  the  floor  in  a  ruin  of  orchestral  noises,  and  a  bedlam  of 
din  from  the  audience. 

By  the  time  he  had  gathered  himself  together  the  cur 
tain  had  been  lowered  and  the  whole  house  was  in  a 
typhoon. 

A  dozen  policemen  who  had  been  hastily  summoned 
and  impatiently  awaited  by  the  manager  charged  down 
the  aisles  and  seized  each  a  double  arm-load  of  the  nearest 
rioters.  The  foremost  policeman  received  Winfield  as  he 
clambered,  shamefaced,  over  the  orchestra  rail. 

Winfield  started  to  explain:  "  I  went  up  there  to  ask  the 
fellows  to  be  quiet." 

The  officer,  indignant  as  he  was,  let  out  a  guffaw  of 
contemptuous  laughter:  "Lord  love  you,  kid,  if  that's  the 
best  lie  you  can  tell,  what's  the  uset  of  education?" 

Winfield  realized  the  hopelessness  of  such  self-defense. 
It  was  less  shameful  to  confess  the  misdemeanor  than  to 
be  ridiculed  for  so  impotent  a  pretext.  He  suffered  him 
self  to  be  jostled  up  the  aisle  and  tossed  into  the  patrol- 
wagon  with  the  first  van-load  of  prisoners.  He  counted 
on  a  brief  stay  there,  for  it  was  a  custom  of  the  college 
to  tip  over  the  patrol-wagon  and  rescue  the  victims  of  the 
police. 

This  year's  Freshmen,  however,  lacked  the  necessary 
initiative  and  leadership,  and  before  the  lost  opportunity 
could  be  regained  the  wagon  had  rolled  away,  leaving  the 
class  to  eternal  ignominy. 


CHAPTER  VI 

F~\EPRIVED  of  its  ringleaders,  the  mob  fell  into  such 
JL/  disarray  that  it  was  ready  to  be  cowed  by  the 
manager  of  the  theater.  He  had  waited  for  the  police 
to  remove  the  chief  pirates,  and  now  he  addressed  the 
audience  with  the  one  speech  that  could  have  had  success : 

"Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I've  lowered  the  curtain  and 
I'm  going  to  keep  it  lowered  till  the  hoodlums  settle  down 
or  get  thrown  out.  The  majority  of  people  here  to-night 
have  paid  good  money  to  see  this  show.  It  is  a  good  show 
and  played  by  a  company  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  from 
one  of  the  best  theaters  in  New  York,  and  I  propose  to 
have  them  treated  as  such  while  they  are  in  our  city. 
We  are  going  to  begin  the  play  all  over  again,  but  if  there 
is  any  further  disturbance  I'll  ring  down  the  asbestos  and 
put  out  the  house  lights.  And  no  moa»y  will  be  returned 
at  the  box-office." 

This  last  argument  converted  the  mob  into  a  sheriff's 
posse.  The  house-manager  received  a  round  of  applause 
and  the  first  Freshman  who  rose  in  his  place  was  subdued 
by  his  own  fellow-classmen. 

Bret  Winfield  spent  the  night  in  a  cell.  He  slept  little, 
because  the  Freshmen  hardly  ceased  to  sing  the  night 
long;  they  were  solacing  themselves  with  doleful  glees. 
Winfield  could  not  help  smiling  at  his  imprisonment. 
Don  Quixote  was  tasting  the  reward  of  misapplied  chivalry. 

The  next  morning  he  made  no  defense  before  the  glower 
ing  judge  who  had  played  just  such  pranks  in  his  college 
days  and  felt,  therefore,  a  double  duty  to  repress  it  in  the 
later  generation.  He  excoriated  Bret  Winfield  especially, 

42 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

and  Winfield  kept  silence,  knowing  that  the  truth  would 
gain  him  no  credence  and  only  added  contempt.  The 
judge  fined  the  young  miscreants  five  dollars  each  and 
left  their  further  punishment  to  the  faculty. 

On  his  way  back  to  his  rooms  after  his  release,  Winfield 
met  Eugene  Vickery,  and  said,  with  a  wry  smile,  "Hello, 
'Gene!  I've  just  escaped  from  the  penitentiary." 

To  his  astonishment,  Vickery  snapped  back,  "I'm  sorry 
to  hear  it." 

Winfield,  seeing  that  he  was  in  earnest,  fumbled  for 
words:  "What  the—  Why  the—  Well,  say!" 

The  slight  and  spindling  youth  confronted  the  bureau- 
chested  giant  and  shook  his  finger  in  his  face:  "If  you 
weren't  so  much  bigger  than  I  am  I'd  give  you  worse  than 
that  actor  gave  you.  To  think  that  a  great  big  hulk 
like  you  should  try  to  attack  a  little  girl  like  that !  Don't 
you  ever  dare  speak  to  me  or  my  sister  again." 

Winfield  gave  an  excellent  imitation  of  incipient  apo 
plexy.  He  seized  Vickery  by  the  lapels  to  demand: 
"Good  Lord,  'Gene,  you  don't  think  I —  Say,  what 
do  you  think  I  am,  anyway?  Why —  Well,  can  you  beat 
it?  I  ask  you?  Ah,  you  can  all  go  plumb  to —  Ah, 
what's  the  good!" 

Winfield  never  was  an  explainer.  He  lacked  language; 
he  lacked  the  ambition  to  be  understood.  It  made  him 
an  excellent  sportsman.  When  he  lost  he  wasted  no 
time  in  explaining  why  he  had  not  won.  To  him  the 
martyrdom  of  being  misunderstood  was  less  bitter  than 
the  martyrdom  of  justifying  himself.  He  was  so  dazed 
now  by  the  outcome  of  his  knight-errantry  that  he  re 
solved  to  leave  the  college  to  its  own  verdict  of  him. 
Eugene  Vickery's  ruling  passion,  however,  was  a  frenzy 
to  understand  and  to  be  understood.  He  caught  the 
meaning  in  Winfield's  incoherence  and  seized  him  by  the 
lapel : 

"You  mean  that  you  didn't  go  out  on  the  stage  to 
scare  the  girl,  but  to —  Well,  that's  more  like  you! 

43 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

I'm  a  lunkhead  not  to  have  known  it  from  the  first. 
Why,  a  copper  collared  me,  too,  and  accused  me  of  being 
one  of  the  Freshmen!  I  talked  him  out  of  it  and  proved 
I  was  a  post-graduate,  or  I'd  have  spent  the  night  in  a 
dungeon,  too.  Well,  well !  and  to  think  I  got  you  so  wrong ! 
You  write  a  statement  to  the  papers  right  away." 

"Ah,  what's  the  good?" 

"Then  I  will." 

"Just  as  much  obliged,  but  no,  you  won't." 

"You  ought  to  square  yourself  with  the  people  who — " 

"There's  just  two  people  I  want  to  square  myself  with — 
that  little  actress  who  didn't  realize  what  I  was  there  for, 
and  that  damned  actor  who  knocked  me  through  the 
bass-drum.  Who  were  they,  anyway?  I  didn't  get  a 
program." 

"I  didn't  see  the  man's  name;  but  the  girl — I  used  to 
know  her." 

"You  did!    Say!" 

"She  was  only  a  kid  then,  and  so  was  I.  She  could  act 
then,  too, — for  a  kid,  but  now —  You  missed  the  rest  of 
the  show,  though,  didn't  you?" 

"Yes.     I  was  called  away." 

"After  you  left,  the  audience  was  as  good  as  a  congre 
gation.  Sheila  Kemble — that's  the  girl — was  wonderful. 
She  didn't  have  much  to  do,  but,  golly!  how  she  did  it! 
She  had  that  thing  they  call  'authority,'  you  know.  I 
wrote  a  play  for  her  as  a  kid." 

"You  did!    Say!     Did  she  like  it?" 

"She  never  saw  it.  But  I'm  going  to  write  her  another. 
I  planned  to  be  a  professor  of  Greek — but  not  now — 
ump-umm!  I'm  going  to  be  a  playwright.  And  I'm  go 
ing  to  make  a  star  out  of  Sheila  Kemble,  and  hitch  my 
wagon  to  her." 

"Well,  say,  give  me  a  ride  in  that  wagon,  will  you? 
Do  you  suppose  I  could  meet  her?  I've  got  to  square 
myself  with  her." 

Eugene  looked  a  trifle  pained  at  Bret's  interest  in 

44 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

another  girl  than  Dorothy,  but  he  said:  " I'm  on  my  way 
to  the  theater  now  to  find  out  where  she's  stopping  and 
leave  this  note  for  her.  I  don't  suppose  she'll  remember 
me;  but  she  might." 

" Do  you  mind  if  I  tag  after  you?  I  might  get  a  swipe 
at  that  actor,  too." 

"Oh,  well,  come  along." 

They  marched  to  the  theater,  stepping  high  and  hoping 
higher.  The  stage  door-keeper  brought  them  to  ground 
with  the  information  that  the  company  had  left  on  a 
midnight  train  after  the  performance.  He  had  no  idea 
where  they  had  gone. 

The  two  youths,  ignorant  of  the  simple  means  of  follow 
ing  theatrical  routes,  went  back  to  their  dismal  university 
with  a  bland  trust  that  fate  would  somehow  arrange  a 
rencounter  for  them. 

Winfield  was  soon  called  before  the  faculty.  He  had 
rehearsed  a  speech  written  for  him  by  Eugene  Vickery. 
He  forgot  most  of  it  and  ruined  its  eloquence  by  his 
mumbling  delivery. 

The  faculty  had  dealt  harshly  with  the  Freshmen, 
several  of  whom  it  had  sent  home  to  the  mercy  of  their 
fathers.  But  Winfield's  explanation  was  accepted.  In 
the  first  place,  he  was  a  Senior  and  not  likely  to  have 
stooped  to  the  atrocity  of  abetting  a  Freshman  enter 
prise.  In  the  second  place,  he  would  be  needed  in  the 
next  rowing-contest  at  New  London.  In  the  third  place, 
his  millionaire  father  was  trembling  on  the  verge  of  donat 
ing  to  the  university  a  second  liberal  endowment. 

Winfield  and  Vickery  returned  to  their  daily  chores  and 
put  in  camphor  their  various  ambitions.  Winfield  en 
dured  the  multitudinous  jests  of  the  university  on  his 
record-breaking  backward  dive  across  the  footlights, 
but  he  made  it  his  business  to  find  out  the  name  of  the 
actor  who  brought  him  his  ignominy.  In  time  he  learned 
it  and  enshrined  "Floyd  Eldon"  and  "Sheila  Kemble" 
in  prominent  niches  for  future  attention.  Somehow  his 

45 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

loneliness  for  Dorothy  seemed  less  poignant  than  be 
fore. 

Eugene  Vickery  could  have  been  seen  at  almost  any 
hour,  lying  on  his  stomach  and  changing  an  improbable 
novel  into  an  impossible  play. 


CHAPTER  VII 

IT  was  Sheila  Kemble's  destiny  to  pass  like  a  mag 
net  through  a  world  largely  composed  of  iron  filings, 
though  it  was  her  destiny  also  to  meet  a  number  of  silver 
churns  on  whom  her  powers  exerted  no  drag  whatever. 
Her  father  had  been  greatly  troubled  by  her  growth 
through  the  various  strata  of  her  personality.  He  had 
noted  with  pain  that  she  had  a  company  smile  which  was 
not  the  smile  that  illumined  her  face  when  she  was  simply 
happy.  He  had  begun  a  course  of  education.  He  kept 
taking  her  down  a  peg  or  two,  mimicking  her,  satirizing 
her.  Her  mother  protested. 

"Let  the  child  alone.  It  will  wear  off.  She  has  to  go 
through  it,  but  she'll  molt  and  take  on  a  new  set  of 
feathers  in  due  time." 

"  She's  got  to,"  Kemble  groaned.  "  I'd  rather  have  her 
deformed  than  affected.  If  she's  going  to  be  conscious 
of  something,  let  her  be  conscious  of  her  faults." 

Sheila  had  been  schooled  at  school  as  well  as  at  home. 
With  both  father  and  mother  earning  large  sums,  the 
family  was  prosperous  enough  to  give  its  only  child  the 
most  expensive  forms  of  education — and  did.  In  school 
she  tormented  and  charmed  her  teachers;  she  was  so 
endlessly  eager  for  attention.  It  was  true  that  she  always 
tried  to  earn  it  and  deserve  it,  but  the  effort  irritated  the 
instructors,  whose  ideal  for  a  girl  was  that  she  should  be 
as  inconspicuous  as  possible.  That  was  not  Sheila's  ideal. 
Not  at  all! 

She  had  soon  tired  of  her  classes.  She  was  by  nature 
quick  at  study.  She  learned  her  lessons  by  a  sort  of 

47 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

mental  photography,  as  she  learned  her  r61es  later.  The 
grind  of  her  lessons  irked  her,  not  because  she  wanted  to 
be  out  at  play  like  other  children,  but  because  she  wanted 
to  be  in  at  work.  As  ambitious  young  men  chafe  to  run 
away  from  school  and  begin  their  destinies,  so  young 
women  are  beginning  to  fret  for  their  own  careers. 

But  Sheila's  father  and  mother  were  eager  for  her  to 
stay  a  baby.  Polly  Farren  especially  was  not  unwilling 
to  postpone  acknowledging  herself  the  mother  of  a  grown 
up  daughter. 

"You  must  have  your  childhood,"  Roger  had  said. 

"But  I've  had  it,"  Sheila  declared. 

"Oh,  you  have,  have  you?"  her  father  laughed.  "Why, 
you  little  upstart  kid,  you're  only  a  baby." 

Sheila  protested:  "Juliet  was  only  thirteen  years  old 
when  she  married  Romeo,  and  Eleonora  Duse  was  only 
fourteen  when  she  played  the  part,  and  here  I'm  sixteen 
and  I  haven't  started  yet." 

"Help!  help!"  cried  Roger,  with  a  sickish  smile.  "But 
you  must  prepare  yourself  for  your  career  by  first  educat 
ing  yourself  as  a  lady." 

This  argument  had  convinced  her.  She  consented  to 
play  one  more  season  at  Miss  Neely's  school.  She  came 
forth  more  zealous  than  ever  to  be  an  actress.  Polly 
and  Roger  had  wheedled  her  along  as  best  they  could, 
tried  to  interest  her  in  literature,  water-colors,  needle 
work,  golf,  tennis,  European  travel.  But  her  cry  for 
"work"  could  not  be  silenced. 

When  the  autumn  drew  on  they  had  urged  her  to 
try  one  year  more  at  school,  pleaded  that  there  was  no 
opening  for  her  in  their  company.  She  was  too  young,  too 
inexperienced. 

She  murmured  "Yes?"  with  an  impudent  uptilt  of  in 
flection. 

She  left  the  house,  and  came  home  that  afternoon  bring 
ing  a  contract.  She  handed  it  to  her  father  with  another 
of  those  rising  inflections,  "No?" 

48 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

He  looked  at  the  paper,  gulped,  called,  "Polly!" 

They  looked  it  over  together.  The  party  of  the  first 
part  was  J.  J.  Cassard. 

"And  who  is  J.  J.  Cassard?"  said  Polly,  trying  not  to 
breathe  fast.  Roger  growled: 

"One  of  those  Pacific-coast  managers  trying  to  jimmy 
a  way  into  New  York." 

Hoping  to  escape  the  vital  question  by  attacking  the 
details,  Roger  glanced  through  the  various  clauses.  It 
was  a  splendid  contract — for  Sheila.  The  hateful  "two- 
weeks'  clause"  by  which  she  could  be  dismissed  at  a  fort 
night's  notice  was  omitted  and  in  its  place  was  an  agree 
ment  to  pay  for  her  costumes  and  a  maid. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  Kemble  blustered,  "that  Cas 
sard  handed  you  a  document  like  that  right  off  the  reel?" 

"Oh  no,"  perked  Sheila;  "he  gave  me  a  regular  white- 
slave  mortgage  at  first." 

"Where  does  she  learn  such  language!"  gasped  Polly. 

Sheila  went  on,  "But  I  whipped  him  out  on  every 
point." 

"It  looks  almost  suspicious,"  said  Kemble,  and  Polly 
protested. 

"  I  was  ten  years  on  the  stage  before  I  got  my  modern 
costumes  and  a  maid." 

"Well,"  said  Sheila,  as  blandly  as  if  she  were  a  traveling 
saleswoman  describing  her  wares,  "Cassard  said  I  was 
pretty,  and  I  reminded  him  that  I  had  the  immense  ad 
vertising  value  of  the  great  Roger  Kemble's  name,  and  I 
told  him  I  had  probably  inherited  some  of  the  wonderful 
dramatic  ability  of  Polly  Farren.  I  told  him  I  might 
take  that  for  my  stage  name — Farren  Kemble." 

Father  and  mother  cast  their  eyes  up  and  shook  their 
heads,  but  they  could  not  help  being  pleased  by  the 
flattery  implied  and  applied. 

Roger  said:  "Well,  if  all  that  is  true,  we'd  better  keep 
it  in  the  family.  You'll  go  with  us." 

"But  you  said  there  was  no  part  for  me  to  play." 

49 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"There's  the  chambermaid." 

"No,  you  don't!"  said  Sheila.  "You  don't  hide  me  in 
any  of  those  'Did  you  rings?'  and  'Won't  you  sit  down, 
ma'ams?'" 

"We'll  have  the  author  build  up  the  part  a  little,  and 
there's  a  bit  in  the  third  act  that's  really  quite  interesting." 

Sheila  refxised  flatly.  But  her  mother  cried  all  that 
night,  and  her  father  looked  so  glum  the  next  morning 
that  she  consented  to  chaperon  them  for  one  more  year. 

She  revealed  a  genuine  gift  for  the  stage,  and  she  had 
a  carrying  personality.  When  she  entered  as  the  chamber 
maid  and  said,  "  Did  you  ring?"  the  audience  felt  a  strange 
ly  vivid  spark  of  reality  at  once.  She  needed  nothing 
to  say.  She  just  was.  Like  some  of  the  curiously  alive 
figures  in  the  paintings  of  the  Little  Dutch  masters, 
she  was  perfectly  in  and  of  the  picture,  and  yet  she  was 
rounded  and  complete.  She  was  felt  when  she  entered 
and  missed  when  she  left. 

Two  or  three  times  when  her  mother  fell  ill  Sheila 
played  her  part — that  of  a  young  widow.  She  did  not 
look  it  yet,  of  course,  but  there  was  that  same  uncanny 
actuality  that  had  stirred  the  people  who  watched  her 
as  an  infantile  Ophelia. 

Seeing  that  she  meant  to  be  a  star  and  was  meant  to 
be  one,  her  parents  gave  her  the  best  of  their  wisdom, 
taught  her  little  tricks  of  make-up,  and  gesture,  and  econ 
omy  of  gesture;  of  emphasis  by  force  and  of  emphasis  by 
restraint;  the  art  of  underlining  important  words  and  of 
seeming  not  to  have  memorized  her  speeches,  but  to  be 
improvising  them  from  the  previous  speech  or  from  the 
situation.  They  taught  her  what  can  be  taught  of  the 
intricate  technique  of  comedy — waiting  for  the  laugh 
while  seeming  to  hurry  past  it;  making  speed,  yet  scoring 
points;  the  great  art  of  listening;  the  delicate  science  of 
when  to  move  and  when  not  to  move,  and  the  tremendous 
power  of  a  turn  of  the  eyes.  And,  above  all,  they  ham 
mered  into  her  head  the  importance  of  sincerity — sincerity. 

5° 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"There  are  hundreds  of  right  ways  to  read  any  line," 
Roger  would  say,  "and  only  one  way  that's  wrong — the 
insincere  way.  Insincerity  can  be  shown  as  much  by  ex 
aggeration  as  by  indifference.  Let  your  character  express 
what  you  feel,  and  the  audience  will  understand  you,  if  it's 
only  a  slow  closing  of  the  eyes  once  or  a  little  shift  of  the 
weight.  Be  sincere!" 

Two  seasons  later,  Roger's  manager  brought  over  from 
Europe  a  well-tried  success  that  suited  Roger  and  Polly 
to  a  T,  but  included  no  role  at  all  for  Sheila.  She  simply 
could  not  play  the  fat  old  dowager,  and  she  simply  would 
not  play  the  laconic  housemaid.  The  time  had  come  for 
the  family  to  part. 

Fathers  are  always  frightened  to  death  of  their  daugh 
ters'  welfares  in  this  risky,  woman-trapping  world.  Roger 
Kemble  knew  well  enough  what  dangers  Sheila  ran. 
Whether  they  were  greater  than  they  would  have  been  in 
any  other  walk  of  life  or  in  the  most  secluded  shelter,  he 
did  not  know.  He  knew  only  that  his  child's  honor  and 
honesty  were  infinitely  dear  to  him,  and  that  he  could 
not  keep  her  from  running  along  the  primrose  path  of 
public  admiration.  He  could  not  be  with  her  always. 

He  managed  to  get  Sheila  an  engagement  with  the 
production  called  "A  Friend  in  Need."  The  part  was 
not  important,  but  she  could  travel  with  her  great-aunt, 
Mrs.  Vining,  who  could  serve  as  her  guardian  and  teach  her 
a  vast  deal  about  acting  as  an  art  and  a  business.  Also 
Polly  decided  to  give  Sheila  her  own  maid,  Nettie  Pennock, 
a  slim,  prim,  grim  old  spinster  whose  very  presence  ad 
vertised  respectability.  Pennock  had  spent  most  of  her 
life  in  the  theater,  and  looked  as  if  she  had  never  seen 
a  play.  Polly  said  that  she  "looked  like  all  the  Hard 
shell  Baptist  ministers'  wives  in  the  world  rolled  into  one." 

But  Pennock  was  broad-hearted  and  reticent,  and  as 
tolerant  as  ministers'  wives  ought  to  be.  She  was  effi 
cient  as  a  machine,  and  as  tireless.  She  could  be  a  tyrant, 

Si 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

and  her  faultfindings  were  sparse  and  sharp  as  drops 
of  vinegar  from  a  cruet.  Polly  was  more  afraid  of  them 
than  of  all  the  thumps  of  the  bladder-swatting  critics. 

Yet  that  frosty  face  could  smile  with  the  sudden  sweet 
ness  of  sunlight  on  snow,  and  Sheila's  arms  about  her 
melted  her  at  once,  except  when  she  had  done  some  mis 
chief  or  malice.  And  then  Pennock  could  be  thawed  only 
by  a  genuine  and  lengthy  penance. 

Roger  urged  Polly  to  fill  Sheila's  ears  with  good  counsel, 
but  Polly  Farren  knew  how  little  impression  advice 
makes  on  those  whom  no  inner  instinct  impels  to  do  the 
right  thing  anyway. 

After  the  usual  rehearsals  in  New  York,  "A  Friend  in 
Need"  had  the  usual  preliminary  weeks  on  the  road 
before  it  was  submitted  to  New  York. 

When  the  time  came  for  Sheila  to  leave  home  and  strike 
out  for  herself,  it  fell  to  Roger  to  take  her  to  the  train. 
Polly  was  suffering  from  one  of  those  sick  headaches 
of  hers  which  prostrated  her  when  she  was  not  at  work, 
though  they  never  kept  her  from  giving  a  sparkling  per 
formance.  Indeed,  Kemble  used  to  say  that  if  the  Angel 
Gabriel  wanted  to  raise  Polly  from  the  grave  on  Judg 
ment  morning,  all  the  trumpets  of  the  Apocalypse  would 
fail  to  rouse  the  late  sleeper.  But  if  he  murmured  "Over 
ture!"  she  would  be  there  in  costume  with  all  her  make-up 
on. 

On  the  way  to  the  station  with  Sheila,  who  was  as  ex 
cited  as  a  boy  going  to  sea,  Roger  was  mightily  troubled 
over  her.  She  was  indeed  going  to  sea,  and  in  a  leaky 
boat,  the  frail  barge  of  dreams.  He  felt  that  he  must 
speak  to  her  on  the  Importance  of  Being  Good.  The 
frivolous  comedian  suffered  anguishes  of  stage-fright,  but 
finally  mustered  the  courage  to  deliver  himself  as  Polo- 
nius  might  have  done  if  it  had  been  Ophelia  instead  of 
Laertes  who  was  setting  out  for  foreign  travel. 

It  was  a  task  to  daunt  a  preachier  parent  than  Roger 

52 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Kemble,  and  it  was  not  easy  to  talk  first  principles  of 
behavior  to  a  sophisticated  young  woman  who  knew  as 
much  about  things  as  Sheila  did. 

Roger  made  a  dozen  false  starts  and  ended  in  gulps, 
till  Sheila  finally  said:  "What's  the  matter,  old  boy? 
You're  trying  to  say  something,  but  I  can't  make  out  what 
it  is.  Tell  me,  and  I  may  be  able  to  throw  you  the  line." 

"  It's  about  you,  honey.  I'm —  That  is,  Polly  is —  At 
least  your  mother  and  I —  Well,  anyway — " 

"Yes,  and  then?"  said  Sheila. 

Roger  got  the  bit  in  his  teeth  and  bolted.  "The  fact 
is,  young  woman,  you  are  all  the  daughters  of  your 
father's  and  mother's  house.  We're  awfully  proud  of  you, 
of  course.  And  we  know  you're  going  to  be  a  big  actress. 
But  we'd  rather  have  you  just  a  good  girl  than  all  the 
stars  in  the  Milky  Way  squeezed  into  one.  Do  you  still 
say  your  prayers  at  night,  honey?" 

"Sometimes,"  she  sighed,  "when  I'm  not  too  sleepy." 

"Well,  say  'em  in  the  mornings,  then,  when  you  first 
get  up." 

"I'm  pretty  sleepy,  then,  too." 

"Well,  for  Heaven's  sake,  say  'em  sometimes." 

"All  right,  daddy,  I  promise.    Was  that  all?" 

"Yes!  No!  That  is —  You  see,  Sheila,  you're  starting 
out  by  yourself  and  you're  awfully  pretty,  and  you're 
pretty  young,  and  the  men  are  always  after  a  pretty 
girl,  especially  on  the  stage.  And  being  on  the  stage, 
you're  sure  to  be  misjudged,  and  men  will  attempt — will 
say  things  they  wouldn't  dare  try  on  a  nice  girl  elsewhere. 
And  you  must  be  very  much  on  your  guard." 

"I'll  try  to  be,  daddy,  thank  you.    Don't  you  worry." 

"You  know  you'll  have  to  go  to  hotels  and  wait  in  rail 
road  stations  and  take  cabs  and  go  about  alone  at  all 
hours,  and  you  must  be  twice  as  cautious  as  you'd  be 
otherwise." 

"I  understand,  dear." 

"You  see,  Sheila  honey,  every  woman  who  is  in  business 

53 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

or  professional  life  or  is  an  artist  or  a  nurse  or  a  doctor 
or  anything  like  that  has  to  stand  a  lot  of  insult,  but 
so  long  as  she  realizes  that  it  really  is  an  insult  for  a  man 
to  be  familiar  or  anything  like  that,  why,  she's  all  right. 
But  the  minute  she  gets  to  feeling  too  free  or  to  acting 
as  if  she  were  a  man,  or  tries  to  be  a  good  fellow  and  a 
Bohemian  and  all  that  rot — she's  going  to  give  men  a 
wrong  impression.  And  then — well,  even  a  man  that 
is  the  very  decentest  sort  is  likely  to — to  grow  a  little  too 
enterprising  if  a  girl  seems  to  encourage  him,  or  even  if 
she  doesn't  discourage  him  right  at  the  jump." 

"I  know." 

That  little  "I  know"  alarmed  him  more  than  ever. 
He  went  on  with  redoubled  zeal. 

"I  want  you  to  remember  one  thing  always,  Sheila — 
you've  got  only  one  life  to  live  and  one  soul  to  take  care 
of  and  only  one  body  to  keep  it  in.  And  it's  entirely  up 
to  you  what  you  make  of  yourself.  Education  and  good 
breeding  and  all  that  sort  of  thing  help,  but  they  don't 
guarantee  anything.  Even  religion  doesn't  always  pro 
tect  a  girl;  sometimes  it  seems  to  make  her  more  emo 
tional  and —  Well,  I  don't  know  what  can  protect  a 
girl  unless  it's  a  kind  of — er — well,  a  sort  of  a — con- 
ceitedness.  Call  it  self-respect  if  you  want  to  or  any 
thing.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  if  I  were  a  girl  the  thing 
that  would  keep  me  straightest  would  be  just  that.  I 
shouldn't  want  to  sell  myself  cheap,  or  give  myself  away 
forever  for  a  few  minutes  of — excitement,  or  throw  the 
most  precious  pearl  on  earth  before  any  swine  of  a  man. 
That's  it,  Sheila — keep  yourself  precious." 

"I'll  try  to,  dad.  Don't  worry!"  she  murmured, 
timidly. 

Such  discussions  are  among  the  most  terrifying  of  hu 
man  experiences.  Roger  Kemble  was  trembling  as  he 
went  on :  "  Some  day,  you  know,  you'll  meet  the  man  that 
belongs  to  you,  and  that  you  belong  to.  Save  yourself 
for  him,  eh?" 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

Then  the  modern  woman  spoke  sternly :  "  Seems  to  me, 
daddy,  that  a  girl  ought  to  have  some  better  reason  for 
taking  care  of  herself  than  just  because  she's  saving  her 
self  for  some  man." 

"Of  course.  You're  quite  right,  my  dear.  But  I  only 
meant — " 

"I  understand.  I'll  try  to  save  myself  for  myself.  I 
don't  belong  to  any  man.  I  belong  just  to  me;  and 
I'm  all  I've  got." 

"That's  a  much  better  way  to  put  it.  Much  better." 
And  he  sighed  with  immense  relief. 

The  idea  of  the  man  that  should  make  his  daughter 
his  own  was  an  odious  idea  to  the  father.  It  was  odious 
now  to  the  girl,  too,  for  she  was  not  yet  ready  for  that 
stormy  crisis  when  she  would  make  a  pride  of  humility 
and  a  rapture  of  surrender. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  play  that  Sheila  was  surrendered  to,  "A  Friend 
in  Need,"  proved  a  success  and  raised  its  young 
author  to  such  heights  of  pride  and  elation  that  when 
his  next  work,  an  ambitious  drama,  was  produced,  he  had 
a  long  distance  to  fall.  And  fell  hard. 

Young  Trivett  had  tossed  off  "A  Friend  in  Need"  and 
had  won  from  it  the  highest  praise  as  a  craftsman.  He 
had  worked  five  years  on  his  drama,  only  to  be  accused  of 
being  "so  spoiled  by  success  as  to  think  that  the  public 
would  endure  anything  he  tossed  off." 

But  the  miserable  collapse  of  his  chef-d'oeuvre  did  not 
even  check  the  triumph  of  his  hors-d'oeuvre.  "A  Friend 
in  Need"  ran  on  "to  capacity"  until  the  summer  weather 
turned  the  theater  into  a  chafing-dish.  Then  the  com 
pany  was  disbanded. 

In  the  early  autumn  following  it  was  reorganized  for  a 
road  tour.  Of  the  original  company  only  four  or  five 
members  were  re-engaged — Sheila,  Mrs.  Vining,  Miss 
Griffen,  and  Tuell. 

During  the  rehearsals  Sheila  had  paid  little  attention 
to  the  new  people.  She  was  doomed  to  be  in  their  com 
pany  for  thirty  or  forty  weeks  and  she  was  in  no  hurry  to 
know  them.  She  was  gracious  enough  to  those  she  met, 
but  she  made  no  advances  to  the  others,  nor  they  to  her. 
She  had  noticed  that  a  new  man  played  the  taxicab- 
driver,  but  she  neither  knew  nor  cared  about  his  name, 
his  aim,  or  his  previous  condition  of  servitude. 

The  Freshmen  of  Leroy  University  brought  him  to  her 
attention  with  a  spectacular  suddenness  in  the  guise  of  a 

56 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

hero.     The  blow  he  struck  in  her  supposed  defense  served 
as  an  ideal  letter  of  introduction. 

As  soon  as  the  curtain  had  fallen  on  the  riot,  cutting 
off  the  view  of  the  battle  between  the  police  and  the 
students,  Sheila  looked  about  for  the  hero  who  had  res 
cued  her  from  Heaven  alone  knew  what  outrage. 

The  neglected  member  of  the  troupe  had  leaped  into 
the  star  rdle,  the  superstar  r61e  of  a  man  who  wages  a 
battle  in  a  woman's  defense.  She  ran  to  him  and,  seizing 
his  hands,  cried: 

"How  can  I  ever,  ever,  ever  thank  you,  Mr. — Mr. — 
I'm  so  excited  I  can't  remember  your  name." 

"Eldon— Floyd  Eldon,  Miss  Kemble." 

"You  were  wonderful,  wonderful!" 

"Why,  thank  you,  Miss  Kemble.  I'm  glad  if  you — 
if —  To  have  been  of  service  to  you  is — is — : 

The  stage-manager  broke  up  the  exchange  of  compliments 
with  a  "Clear!  clear!  Damn  it,  the  curtain's  going  up." 
They  ran  for  opposite  wings. 

When  the  play  was  over  Eldon  was  not  to  be  found,  and 
Sheila  went  with  her  aunt  to  the  train.  At  the  hour  when 
Winfield  was  being  released  from  his  cell  the  special 
sleeping-car  that  carried  the  "Friend  in  Need"  company 
was  three  hundred  miles  or  more  away  and  fleeing  farther. 

When  Sheila  raised  the  curtain  of  her  berth  and  looked 
out  upon  the  reeling  landscape  the  morning  was  nearly 
noon.  Yet  when  she  hobbled  down  the  aisle  in  unbut 
toned  shoes  and  the  costume  of  a  woman  making  a  hasty 
exit  from  a  burning  building,  there  were  not  many  of 
the  troupe  awake  to  observe  her.  Her  aunt,  however, 
was  among  these,  for  old  age  was  robbing  Mrs.  Vining 
of  her  lifelong  habit  of  forenoon  slumber.  Like  many 
another  of  her  age,  she  berated  as  weak  or  shiftless  what 
she  could  no  longer  enjoy. 

But  Sheila  was  used  to  her  and  her  rubber-stamp  ap 
proval  of  the  past   and  rubber-stamp  reproval  of  the 
present.     They  went  into  the  dining-car  together,  Sheila 
5  57 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

making  the  usual  theatrical  combination  of  breakfast 
and  lunch.  As  she  took  her  place  at  a  table  she  caught 
sight  of  her  rescuer  of  the  night  before. 

He  was  gouging  an  orange  when  Sheila  surprised  him 
with  one  of  her  best  smiles.  His  startled  spoon  shot  a 
geyser  of  juice  into  his  eye,  but  he  smiled  back  in  spite  of 
that,  and  made  a  desperate  effort  not  to  wink.  Sheila 
noted  the  stoicism  and  thought  to  herself,  "A  hero,  on 
and  off." 

Later  in  the  afternoon  when  she  had  read  such  morning 
papers  as  were  brought  aboard  the  train,  and  found  them 
deadly  dull  since  there  was  nothing  about  her  in  them, 
and  when  she  had  read  into  her  novel  till  she  discovered 
the  familiar  framework  of  it,  and  when  from  sheer  bore 
dom  she  was  wishing  that  it  were  a  matinee  day  so  that 
she  might  be  at  her  work,  she  saw  Floyd  Eldon  coming 
down  the  aisle  of  the  car. 

He  had  sat  in  the  smoking-room  until  he  had  wearied 
of  the  amusing  reminiscences  of  old  Jaffer,  who  was 
always  reminiscent,  and  of  the  grim  silence  of  Crumb, 
who  was  always  taciturn,  and  of  the  half -smothered 
groans  of  Tuell,  who  was  always  aching  somewhere.  At 
length  Eldon  had  resolved  to  be  alone,  that  he  might  ride 
herd  about  the  drove  of  his  own  thoughts.  He  made  his 
face  ready  for  a  restrained  smile  that  should  not  betray 
to  Sheila  in  one  passing  glance  all  that  she  meant  to  him. 

To  his  ecstatic  horror  she  stopped  him  with  a  gesture 
and  overwhelmed  him  by  the  delightful  observation 
that  it  was  a  beautiful  day.  He  freely  admitted  that  it 
was  and  would  have  moved  on,  but  she  checked  him 
again  to  present  him  to  Mrs.  Vining. 

Mrs.  Vining  was  pleased  with  the  distinguished  bow  he 
gave  her.  It  was  a  sort  of  old-comedy  bow.  She  studied 
him  freely  as  he  turned  in  response  to  Sheila's  next  con 
fusing  words: 

"I  want  to  thank  you  again  for  coming  to  my  rescue 
from  that  horrible  brute." 

.58 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Eldon  looked  as  guilty  as  if  she  had  accused  him  of  being 
himself  the  brute  he  had  saved  her  from.  He  threw  off 
his  disgusting  embarrassment  with  an  effort  at  a  careless 
shrug: 

"It  was  nothing — nothing  at  all,  I  am  sure." 

"It  was  wonderful,"  Sheila  insisted.  "How  powerful 
you  must  be  to  have  lifted  that  monster  clear  over  the 
apron  of  the  stage  into  the  lap  of  the  orchestra!" 

A  man  never  likes  to  deny  his  infinite  strength,  but 
Eldon  was  honest  enough  to  protest:  "I  caught  him  off 
his  balance,  I  am  afraid.  And,  besides,  it  comes  rather 
natural  to  me  to  slug  a  man  from  Leroy." 

"Yes?     Why?" 

"  I  am  a  Grantham  man  myself.  I  was  on  our  'varsity 
eleven  a  couple  of  years." 

"Oh!"  said  Sheila.     "Sit  down,  won't  you?" 

She  felt  that  she  had  managed  this  rather  crassly. 
It  would  have  been  more  delicate  to  express  less  surprise 
and  to  delay  the  invitation  to  a  later  point.  But  it  was 
too  late  now.  He  had  already  dropped  into  the  place 
beside  her,  not  noticing  until  too  late  that  he  sat  upon  a 
novel  and  a  magazine  or  two  and  an  embroidery  hoop 
on  which  she  had  intended  to  work.  But  he  was  on 
so  many  pins  and  needles  that  he  hardly  heeded  one 
more. 

College  men  are  increasingly  frequent  on  the  stage, 
but  not  yet  frequent  enough  to  escape  a  little  prestige  or 
a  little  prejudice,  according  to  the  point  of  view.  In 
Sheila's  case  Eldon  gained  prestige  and  a  touch  of  majesty 
that  put  her  wits  to  some  embarrassment  for  conversation. 
It  was  one  thing  to  be  gracious  to  a  starveling  actor  with 
a  two-line  r61e;  it  was  quite  another  to  be  gracious  to  a 
football  hero  full  of  fame  and  learning. 

Mrs.  Vining,  however,  had  played  grandes  dames  too 
long  to  look  up  to  anybody.  She  felt  at  ease  even  in  the 
presence  of  this  big  third-baseman,  or  coxswain,  or  what- 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

ever  he  had  been  on  his  football  nine.  She  said,  "Been 
on  the  stage  long,  Mr.  Eldon?" 

Eldon  grinned  meekly,  looked  up  and  down  the  aisle 
with  mock  anxiety,  and  answered:  "The  stage-manager 
isn't  listening?  This  is  my  first  engagement." 

"Really?"  was  the  only  comment  Sheila  could  think  of. 

After  his  long  silence  in  the  company,  and  under  the 
warming  influence  of  Sheila's  presence,  the  snows  of 
pent-up  reminiscence  came  down  in  a  flood  of  confession: 

' '  I  don't  really  belong  on  the  stage,  you  know.  I  haven't 
a  big  enough  part  to  show  how  bad  an  actor  I  really  could 
be  if  I  had  the  chance.  But  I  set  my  mind  on  going  on 
the  stage,  and  go  I  went." 

"  Did  you  find  it  hard  to  get  a  position?" 

"Well,  when  I  left  college  and  the  question  of  my 
profession  came  up,  dad  and  I  had  several  hot-and-heavies. 
Finally  he  swore  that  if  I  didn't  accept  a  job  in  his  office 
I  need  never  darken  his  door  again.  Business  of  turning 
out  of  house.  Father  shaking  fist.  Son  exit  center,  swear 
ing  he  will  never  come  back  again.  Sound  of  door  slam 
ming  heard  off." 

Sheila  still  loved  life  in  theatrical  terms.  "But  what 
did  your  poor  mother  do?"  she  said. 

A  film  seemed  to  veil  Eldon's  eyes  as  he  mumbled: 
"She  wasn't  there.  She  was  spared  that."  Then  he 
gulped  down  his  private  grief  and  went  on  with  his  more 
congenial  self-derision :  "  I  left  home,  feeling  like  Columbus 
going  to  discover  America.  I  didn't  expect  to  star  the 
first  year,  but  I  thought  I  could  get  some  kind  of  a  job. 
I  went  to  New  York  and  called  on  all  the  managers.  I 
was  such  an  ignoramus  that  I  hadn't  heard  of  the  agencies. 
I  got  to  know  several  office-boys  very  well  before  one  of 
them  told  me  about  the  employment  bureaus.  Well,  you 
know  all  about  that  agency  game." 

Sheila  had  been  spared  the  passage  through  this  Inferno 
on  her  way  to  the  Purgatory  of  apprenticeship.  But  she 
had  heard  enough  about  it  to  feel  sad  for  him,  and  she 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

spared  him  any  allusions  to  her  superior  luck.    Still,  she 
encouraged  him  to  describe  his  own  adventures. 

He  told  of  the  hardships  he  encountered  and  the  siege 
he  laid  to  the  theater  before  he  found  a  breach  in  its  walls 
to  crawl  through.  Constantly  he  paused  to  apologize  for 
his  garrulity,  but  Sheila  urged  him  on.  She  had  been 
born  within  the  walls  and  she  knew  almost  nothing  of 
the  struggles  that  others  met  except  from  hearsay.  And 
she  had  never  heard  say  from  just  such  a  man  with  just 
such  a  determination.  So  she  coaxed  him  on  and  on  with 
his  history,  as  Desdemona  persuaded  Othello  co  talk. 
With  a  greedy  ear  she  devoured  up  his  discourse  and  made 
him  dilate  all  his  pilgrimage.  Only,  Eldon  was  not  a  Black- 
moor,  and  it  was  of  his  defeats  and  not  his  victories  that 
he  told.  Which  made  him  perhaps  all  the  more  attractive, 
seeing  that  he  was  well  born  and  well  made. 

He  laughed  at  his  own  ignorance,  and  felt  none  of  the 
pity  for  himself  that  Sheila  felt  for  him.  When  she 
praised  his  determination,  he  sneered  at  himself: 

"  It  was  just  bull-headed  stubbornness.  I  was  ashamed 
to  go  back  to  my  dad  and  eat  veal,  and  so  I  didn't  eat 
much  of  anything  for  a  long  while.  The  only  jobs  I 
could  get  were  off  the  stage,  and  I  held  them  just  long 
enough  to  save  up  for  another  try.  How  these  actors 
keep  alive  I  can't  imagine.  I  nearly  starved  to  death. 
It  wouldn't  have  been  much  of  a  loss  to  the  stage  if  I 
had,  but  it  wasn't  much  fun  for  me.  I  wore  out  my 
clothes  and  wore  out  my  shoes  and  my  overcoat  and 
my  hat.  I  wore  out  everything  but  my  common  sense. 
If  I'd  had  any  of  that  I'd  have  given  up." 

Mrs.  Vining  moved  uneasily.  "If  you'd  had  common 
sense  you  wouldn't  have  tried  to  get  on  the  stage." 

"Auntie!"  Sheila  gasped.  But  she  put  up  her  old  hand 
like  a  decayed  czarina: 

"And  if  you  have  common  sense  you'll  never  succeed, 
now  that  you're  here." 

When  this  bewildered  Eldon,  she  added,  with  the  dig- 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

nity  of  a  priestess:  "Acting  is  an  art,  not  a  business;  and 
people  come  to  see  artists,  not  business  men.  Half  of 
the  actors  are  just  drummers  traveling  about;  but  the 
real  successes  are  made  by  geniuses  who  have  charm  and 
individuality  and  insight  and  uncommon  sense.  I  think 
you're  probably  just  fool  enough  to  succeed.  But  go  on." 

Eldon  felt  both  flattered  and  dismayed  by  this  pro 
nouncement.  He  began  to  talk  to  hide  his  confusion. 

"I'm  a  fool,  all  right.  Whether  I'm  just  the  right  sort 
of  a  fool —  Well,  anyway — my  money  didn't  last  long, 
and  I  owed  everybody  that  would  trust  me  for  a  meal  or 
a  room.  The  office-boys  gave  me  impudence  until  I  wore 
that  out  too,  and  then  they  treated  me  like  any  old  bench- 
warmer  in  the  park.  The  agents  grew  sick  of  the  sight 
of  me.  They  sent  me  to  the  managers  until  they  had 
instructions  not  to  send  me  again.  But  still  I  stuck  at  it, 
the  Lord  knows  why. 

"One  day  I  went  the  rounds  of  the  agencies  as  usual. 
When  I  came  to  the  last  one  I  was  so  nauseated  with  the 
idiocy  of  asking  the  same  old  grocery-boy's  question, 
'Anything  to-day?'  I  just  put  my  head  in  at  the  door, 
gave  one  hungry  look  around,  and  started  away  again. 
The  agent — Mrs.  Sanchez,  it  was — beckoned  to  me,  but 
I  didn't  see;  she  called  after  me,  but  I  didn't  hear;  she 
sent  an  office-boy  to  bring  me  back. 

"When  I  squeezed  through  the  crowd  in  the  office  it 
was  like  being  called  out  of  my  place  in  the  bread-line 
to  get  the  last  loaf  of  the  day.  I  felt  ashamed  of  my 
success  and  I  was  afraid  that  I  was  going  to  be  asked  to 
take  the  place  of  some  Broadway  star  who  had  suddenly 
fallen  ill. 

"  Mrs.  Sanchez  swung  open  the  gate  in  the  rail  and  said: 
'Young  man,  can  you  sing?' 

"My  heart  fell  to  the  floor  and  I  stepped  on  it.  I 
heard  myself  saying,  'Is  Caruso  sick?' 

"Mrs.  Sanchez  explained:  'It's  not  so  bad  as  all  that. 
But  can  you  carry  a  tune?' 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

"I  told  her  that  I  used  to  growl  as  loud  a  bass  as  the 
rest  of  them  when  we  sang  on  the  college  fence. 

'"That's  enough,'  said  Mrs.  Sanchez.  'They're  put 
ting  on  a  Civil  War  play  and  they  want  a  man  to  be  one 
of  a  crowd  of  soldiers  who  sing  at  the  camp-fire  in  one  of 
the  acts.  The  part  isn't  big  enough  to  pay  a  singer  and 
there  is  nothing  else  to  do  but  get  shot  and  play  dead 
in  the  battle  scene.' 

"I  told  her  I  thought  I  could  play  dead  to  the  satis 
faction  of  any  reasonable  manager  and  she  gave  me  a 
card  to  the  producer. 

"Then  she  said,  'You've  never  been  on  the  stage,  have 
you?' 

"I  shook  my  head.  She  told  me  to  tell  the  producer 
that  I  had  just  come  in  from  the  road  with  a  play  that 
had  closed  after  a  six  months'  run.  I  took  the  card 
and  dashed  out  of  the  office  so  fast  I  nearly  knocked  over 
a  poor  old  thing  with  a  head  of  hair  like  a  bushel  of 
excelsior.  It  took  me  two  days  to  get  to  the  producer, 
and  then  he  told  me  that  it  had  been  decided  not  to 
send  the  play  out,  since  the  theatrical  conditions  were 
so  bad." 

Mrs.  Vining  interpolated,  "Theatrical  conditions  are 
like  the  weather — always  dangerous  for  people  with  poor 
circulation." 

"I  went  back  to  the  office,"  said  Eldon,  "and  told 
Mrs.  Sanchez  the  situation.  The  other  members  of  the 
company  had  beaten  me  there.  The  poor  old  soul  was 
broken-hearted,  and  I  don't  believe  she  regretted  her 
lost  commissions  as  much  as  the  disappointment  of  the 
actors. 

"A  lot  of  people  have  told  me  she  was  heartless.  She 
was  always  good  to  me,  and  if  she  was  a  little  hard  in  her 
manner  it  was  because  she  would  have  died  if  she  hadn't 
been.  Agents  are  like  doctors,  they've  got  to  grow  cal 
lous  or  quit.  Her  office  was  a  shop  where  she  bought 
and  sold  hopes  and  heartbreaks,  and  if  she  had  squandered 

63 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

her  sympathy  on  everybody  she  wouldn't  have  lasted  a 
week.  But  for  some  reason  or  other  she  made  a  kind 
of  pet  of  me." 

Mrs.  Vining  murmured,  "I  rather  fancy  that  she  was 
not  the  first,  and  won't  be  the  last,  woman  to  do  that." 

Eldon  flushed  like  a  young  boy  who  has  been  told  that 
he  is  pretty.  He  realized  also  that  he  had  been  talking 
about  himself  to  a  most  unusual  extent  with  most  un 
usual  frankness,  and  he  relapsed  into  silence  until  Sheila 
urged  him  on. 

It  was  a  stupid  Sunday  afternoon  in  the  train  and  he 
was  like  a  traveler  telling  of  strange  lands,  under  the 
insatiable  expectancy  of  a  fair  listener.  There  are  few 
industries  easier  to  persuade  a  human  being  toward  than 
the  industry  of  autobiography.  Eldon  described  the 
dreary  Sahara  of  idleness  that  he  crossed  before  his  next 
opportunity  appeared. 

As  a  castaway  sits  in  the  cabin  of  a  ship  that  has  rescued 
him  and  smiles  while  he  recounts  the  straits  he  has  es 
caped  from,  and  never  dreams  of  the  storms  that  are 
gathering  in  his  future  skies,  so  Eldon  in  the  Pullman  car 
chuckled  over  the  history  of  his  past  and  fretted  not  a 
whit  over  the  miseries  he  was  hurrying  to. 

The  only  thing  that  could  have  completed  his  luxury 
was  added  to  him  when  he  saw  that  Sheila,  instead  of 
laughing  with  him,  was  staring  at  him  through  half- 
closed  eyelids  on  whose  lashes  there  was  more  than  a 
suspicion  of  dew.  There  was  pity  in  her  eyes,  but  in  her 
words  only  admiration: 

"And  you  didn't  give  up  even  then!" 

"No,"  said  Eldon;  "it  is  mighty  hard  knocking  intel 
ligence  into  as  thick  a  skull  as  mine.  I  went  back  to  the 
garage  where  I  had  worked  as  a  helper.  I  had  learned 
something  about  automobiles  when  I  ran  the  one  my 
father  bought  me.  But  I  kept  nagging  the  agencies. 
Awful  idiot,  eh?" 

64 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

To  his  great  surprise  the  cynical  Mrs.  Vining  put  in  a 
word  of  implied  approval : 

"We  are  always  reading  about  the  splendid  persever 
ance  of  men  who  become  leading  dry-goods  merchants 
of  their  towns  or  prominent  politicians  or  great  painters, 
but  the  actors  know  as  well  as  anybody  what  real  per 
severance  is.  And  nobody  gives  them  credit  for  being 
anything  but  a  lot  of  dissipated  loafers." 

Sheila  was  not  interested  in  generalizations.  She 
wanted  to  know  about  the  immediate  young  man  before 
her.  She  was  still  child  enough  to  feel  tremendous  sus 
pense  over  a  situation,  however  well  she  knew  that  it 
must  have  a  happy  ending.  When  she  had  been  littler 
the  story  of  Jack  the  Giant-killer  had  enjoyed  an  un 
broken  run  of  forty  nights  in  the  bedtime  repertoire  of  her 
mother.  And  never  once  had  she  failed  to  shiver  with 
delicious  fright  and  suffer  anguishes  of  anxiety  for  poor 
Jack  whenever  she  heard  the  ogre's  voice.  At  the  first 
sound  of  his  leit  motiv,  "Fee,  fi,  fo,  fum — "  her  little  hands 
would  clutch  her  mother's  arm  and  her  eyes  would  pop 
with  terror.  Yet,  without  losing  at  all  the  thrill  of  the 
drama,  she  would  correct  the  least  deviation  from  the 
sacred  text  and  rebuke  the  least  effort  at  interpolation. 

It  was  this  weird  combination  of  childish  credulity, 
fierce  imagination,  and  exact  intelligence  that  made  up 
her  gift  of  pretending.  So  long  as  she  could  keep  that 
without  outgrowing  it,  as  the  vast  majority  do,  she  would 
be  set  apart  from  the  herd  as  one  who  could  dream 
with  the  eyes  wide  open. 

When  she  looked  at  Eldon  she  saw  him  as  the  ragged, 
hungry  beggar  at  the  stage  door.  She  saw  him  turned 
away  and  she  feared  that  he  might  die,  though  she  knew 
that  he  still  lived.  There  was  genuine  anxiety  in  her 
voice  when  she  demanded,  "How  on  earth  did  you  ever 
manage  to  succeed?" 

"I  haven't  succeeded  yet,"  said  Eldon,  "or  even  begun 
to,  but  I  am  still  alive.  It's  hard  to  get  food  and  em- 

65 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

ployment  in  New  York,  but  somehow  it's  harder  still  to 
starve  there.  One  way  or  another  I  kept  at  work  and 
hounded  the  managers.  And  one  day  I  happened  in  at  a 
manager's  office  just  as  he  was  firing  an  actor  who  thought 
he  had  some  rights  in  the  world.  He  snapped  me  up  with 
an  offer  of  twenty-five  dollars  a  week.  If  he  had  offered 
me  a  million  it  wouldn't  have  seemed  any  bigger." 

Mrs.  Vining  had  listened  with  unwonted  interest  and 
with  some  difficulty,  for  sleep  had  been  tugging  at  her 
heavy  old  eyelids.  As  soon  as  she  heard  that  Eldon  had 
arrived  in  haven  at  last  she  felt  no  further  necessity  of 
attention  and  fell  asleep  on  the  instant. 

Sheila  sighed  with  relief,  too.  And  the  train  had 
purred  along  contentedly  for  half  a  mile  before  she 
realized  that  after  all  Eldon  was  not  with  that  company, 
but  with  this.  Seeing  that  her  aunt  was  no  longer  with 
them  in  spirit,  she  lowered  her  voice  to  comment: 

"But  if  you  went  with  the  other  troupe,  what  are  you 
doing  here?" 

"Well,  you  see,  I  thought  I  ought  to  tell  Mrs.  Sanchez 
the  good  news.  I  thought  she  would  be  glad  to  hear  it, 
and  I  was  going  to  offer  her  the  commission  for  all  the 
work  she  had  done  and  all  the  time  she  had  spent  on  me. 
She  looked  disappointed  when  I  told  her,  and  she  warned 
me  that  the  manager  was  unreliable  and  the  play  a  gamble. 
She  had  just  found  me  a  position  with  a  company  taking 
an  assured  success  to  the  road.  It  was  this  play  of  yours. 
The  part  was  small  and  the  pay  was  smaller  still,  but  it 
was  good  for  forty  weeks. 

"But  I  was  ambitious,  and  I  told  her  I  would  take  the 
other.  I  wanted  to  create — that  was  the  big  word  I 
used — I  wanted  to  '  create '  a  new  part.  She  told  me  that 
the  first  thing  for  an  actor  to  do  was  to  connect  with  a 
steady  job,  but  I  wouldn't  listen  to  her  till  finally  she 
happened  to  mention  something  that  changed  my  mind." 

He  flushed  with  an  excitement  that  roused  Sheila's 
curiosity.  When  he  did  not  go  on,  she  said: 

66 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"But  what  was  it  that  changed  your  mind?" 
Eldon  smiled  comfortably,  and,  emboldened  by  the  long 
attention  of  his  audience,  ventured  to  murmur  the  truth: 
"  I  had  seen  you  act — in  New  York — in  this  play,  and  I — 
I  thought  that  you  were  a  wonderful  actress,  and  more 
than  that — the  most — the  most —  Well,  anyway,  Mrs. 
Sanchez  happened  to  mention  that  you  would  be  with 
this  company,  so  I  took  the  part  of  the  taxicab-driver. 
But  I  found  I  was  farther  away  from  you  than  ever — till 
— till  last  night." 

And  then  Eldon  was  as  startled  at  the  sound  of  his 
words  and  their  immense  import  as  Sheila  was.  The 
little  word  "you"  resounded  softly  like  warning  tor 
pedoes  on  a  railroad  track  signaling:  "Down  brakes! 
Danger  ahead!" 


CHAPTER   IX 

A~j  Eldon's  words  echoed  back  through  his  ears  he 
knew  that  he  had  said  too  much  and  too  soon. 
Sheila  was  afraid  to  speak  at  all;  she  could  not  improvise 
the  exquisitely  nice  phrase  that  should  say  neither  more 
nor  less  than  enough.  Indeed,  she  could  not  imagine  just 
what  she  wanted  to  say,  what  she  really  felt  or  ought  to 
feel. 

The  woman  was  never  born,  probably,  who  could  find 
a  declaration  of  devotion  entirely  unwelcome,  no  matter 
from  whom.  And  yet  Sheila  felt  any  number  of  incon 
veniences  in  being  loved  by  this  man  who  was  a  total 
stranger  yesterday  and  an  old  acquaintance  to-day.  It 
would  be  endlessly  embarrassing  to  have  a  member  of  the 
company,  especially  so  humble  a  member,  infatuated 
with  her.  It  would  be  infinitely  difficult  to  be  ordinarily 
polite  to  him  without  either  wounding  him  or  seeming  to 
encourage  him.  She  had  the  theatric  gift  for  carrying 
on  a  situation  into  its  future  developments.  She  was 
silent,  but  busily  silent,  dramatizing  to-morrows,  and  the 
to-morrows  of  to-morrows. 

Eldon's  thoughts  also  were  speeding  noisily  through 
his  brain  while  his  lips  were  uncomfortably  idle.  He  felt 
that  he  had  been  guilty  of  a  gross  indiscretion  and  he 
wanted  to  remove  himself  from  the  discomfort  he  had 
created,  but  he  could  not  find  the  courage  to  get  himself 
to  his  feet,  or  the  wit  to  continue  or  even  to  take  up  some 
other  subject. 

It  was  probably  their  silence  that  finally  wakened  Mrs. 
Vining.  She  opened  her  drowsy  eyes,  wondering  how 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

long  she  had  slept  and  hoping  that  they  had  not  missed 
lier.  She  realized  at  once  that  they  were  both  laboring 
under  some  confusion.  She  was  going  to  ask  what  it  was. 

Sheila  resented  the  situation.  Already  she  was  a 
fellow-culprit  with  this  troublesome  young  man.  An 
unwitting  rescuer  appeared  in  the  person  of  the  stage- 
manager  who  dawdled  along  the  aisle  in  the  boredom  of 
a  stage-manager,  who  can  never  quite  forget  his  position 
of  authority  and  is  never  allowed  to  forget  that  his 
flock  are  proud  individuals  who  feel  that  they  know  more 
than  he  does. 

Sheila  was  impelled  to  appeal  to  Batterson  on  Eldon's 
behalf,  but  she  and  the  stage-manager  had  been  in  a 
state  of  armed  truce  since  a  clash  that  occurred  at  re 
hearsals.  Batterson  was  not  the  original  producer  of  the 
play,  but  he  put  out  the  road  company  and  kept  with  it. 

A  reading  of  Sheila's  had  always  jarred  him.  He  tried 
to  change  it.  She  tried  to  oblige  him,  but  simply  could 
not  grasp  what  he  was  driving  at.  One  of  those  peculiar 
struggles  ensued  in  which  two  people  are  mutually 
astounded  and  outraged  at  their  inability  to  explain  or 
understand. 

But  if  Mr.  Batterson  was  hostile  to  Sheila,  he  was 
afraid  of  Mrs.  Vining,  both  because  he  revered  her  and 
because  she  had  known  him  when  he  was  one  of  the 
most  unpromising  beginners  that  ever  attempted  the 
stage.  He  had  never  succeeded  as  an  actor,  which  was 
no  proof  of  his  inability  to  tell  others  how  to  act,  but 
always  seemed  so  to  them. 

As  he  would  have  passed,  Mrs.  Vining,  quite  as  if  Sheila 
had  prompted  her,  made  a  gesture  of  detention: 

"Oh,  Mr.  Batterson,  will  you  do  me  a  great  favor?" 
He  bowed  meekly,  and  she  said,  "Be  a  good  boy  and 
give  Mr.  Eldon  here  a  chance  to  do  some  real  work  the 
first  opportunity  you  get." 

Batterson  sighed.  "Good  Lord!  has  he  been  pestering 
you,  too?" 

69 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"He  has  been  telling  me  of  his  struggles  and  his  am 
bitions,"  Mrs.  Vining  answered,  with  reproving  dignity, 
"and  I  can  see  that  he  has  ability.  He  is  a  gentleman, 
at  least,  and  that  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  some  of  the 
people  who  are  given  some  of  the  roles." 

Batterson  did  not  relish  this.  He  had  had  one  or  two 
battles  with  Mrs.  Vining  over  some  of  her  stage  business 
and  had  been  withered  by  her  comments  on  his  knowledge 
of  what  really  went  on  in  real  drawing-rooms.  She  had  told 
him  that  they  were  as  different  as  possible  from  stage 
drawing-rooms,  and  he  had  lacked  information  to  answer. 
All  he  said  now  was : 

"I've  promised  Eldon  a  dozen  times  that  he  should 
have  a  try  at  the  first  vacancy.  But  you  know  this  old 
guard;  they  never  surrender  and  they  never  die." 

"Except  when  they  get  a  cue,"  was  Mrs.  Vining's  drop 
of  acid. 

Batterson  renewed  his  pledge  and  moved  on,  with  a 
glance  in  which  Eldon  felt  more  threat  than  promise. 
But  he  thanked  Mrs.  Vining  profusely  and  apologized  to 
Sheila  for  taking  so  much  of  her  time  talking  about  him 
self.  This  made  a  good  exit  speech  and  he  retired  to  his 
cell,  carrying  with  him  a  load  of  new  anxieties  and  am 
bitions. 

Triply  happy  was  Eldon  now.  He  had  been  commended 
to  the  stage-manager  and  promised  the  first  opportunity. 
He  was  getting  somewhere.  He  had  established  himself 
in  the  good  graces  of  the  old  duchess  of  the  troupe.  He 
had  put  his  idol,  Sheila,  under  obligations  to  him.  He 
had  ventured  to  let  her  know  that  he  had  joined  the 
company  on  her  account,  and  she  had  not  rebuked  him. 
This  in  itself  was  a  thousand  miles  on  his  journey. 

The  meter  of  the  train  had  hitherto  been  but  a  dry, 
monotonous  clickety-click  like  the  rattle  bones  of  a  dol 
orous  negro  minstrel.  Now  it  was  a  jig,  a  wedding  jig. 
The  wheels  and  the  rails  fairly  sang  to  him  tune  after 

70 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

tune.  The  amiable  hippety-hop  fitted  itself  to  any  joy 
ful  thought  that  cantered  through  his  heart. 

By  and  by  a  town  came  sliding  to  the  windows — 
Milton,  a  typical  smallish  city  with  a  shabby  station, 
a  stupid  hotel,  no  history,  and  no  sights;  it  had  reached 
the  gawky  age  and  stopped  growing.  But  Eldon  bade  it 
welcome.  He  liked  anybody  and  any  place.  He  set  out 
for  the  hotel,  swinging  his  suit-case  as  if  it  were  the  harp 
of  a  troubadour.  He  walked  with  two  or  three  other  men 
of  the  company. 

Old  Jaffer  had  said:  "The  Mansion  House  is  the  only 
hotel.  It's  three  blocks  to  the  right  from  the  station  and 
then  two  blocks  to  the  left."  Jaffer  knew  the  least  bad 
hotel  and  just  how  to  find  it  in  hundreds  of  towns.  He 
was  a  living  gazetteer.  "I've  been  to  every  burg  in  the 
country,  I  think,"  he  would  say,  "and  I've  never  seen  one 
yet  that  had  anything  to  see."  The  highest  praise  he 
could  give  a  place  was,  "It's  a  good  hotel  town." 

But  they  were  all  paradises  to  Eldon.  He  had  fed  so 
dismally  and  so  sparsely,  as  a  man  out  of  a  job,  that  even 
the  mid-Western  coffee  tasted  good  to  him.  Besides, 
to-day  he  had  fed  on  honey  dew  and  drunk  the  milk  of 
paradise. 

He  was  so  jubilant  that  he  offered  to  carry  the  hand 
bag  of  Vincent  Tuell,  who  labored  along  at  his  side, 
groaning.  Eldon's  offer  offended  Tuell,  who  was  just 
old  enough  to  resent  his  age.  It  had  already  begun  to  lop 
dollars  off  his  salary  and  to  cut  him  out  of  the  line  of  parts 
he  had  once  commanded. 

Tuell  had  never  reached  high — but  he  had  always  hoped 
high.  Now  he  had  closed  the  books  of  hope.  He  was 
on  the  down  grade.  His  career  had  not  been  a  peak,  but 
a  foot-hill,  and  he  was  on  the  wrong  side  of  that.  He 
received  Eldon's  proffer  as  an  accusation  of  years.  He 
answered  with  a  bitter  negative,  "No,  thank  you,  damn 
you!" 

Eldon  apologized  with  a  laugh.     He  felt  as  hilariously 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

contented  and  sportive  as  a  young  pup  whom  no  rebuff 
can  offend.  As  he  strode  along  he  glanced  back  and 
saw  that  Sheila  and  Mrs.  Vining  were  footing  it,  too, 
and  carrying  such  luggage  as  Pennock  could  not  ac 
commodate.  Eldon  was  amazed.  He  had  supposed 
that  they  would  ride.  He  dropped  back  to  Sheila's  el 
bow  and  pleaded: 

"Won't  you  let  me  take  a  cab  and  ride  you  to  the  hotel  ?" 

Sheila  thanked  him  No,  and  Mrs.  Vining  finished  him 
off: 

"Young  man,  if  you're  going  to  be  an  actor  you  must 
learn  to  practise  small  economies — especially  in  small 
towns  where  you  gain  nothing  by  extravagance.  You 
never  know  how  short  your  season  may  be.  The  actor 
who  wastes  money  on  cabs  in  the  winter  will  be  borrowing 
car  fare  in  the  summer." 

Eldon  accepted  the  repulse  as  if  it  were  a  bouquet.  "  I 
see;  but  at  least  you  must  let  me  carry  your  suit-cases." 

Mrs.  Vining  threw  him  much  the  same  answer  as  Tuell : 
"I'm  not  so  old  as  I  look,  and  I  travel  light." 

He  turned  to  Sheila,  whose  big  carry-all  was  so  heavy 
that  it  dragged  one  shoulder  down.  She  looked  like  the 
picture  of  somebody  or  other  carrying  a  bucket  from  the 
well — or  was  it  from  a  cow?  He  put  out  his  hand.  She 
turned  aside  to  dodge  him.  He  followed  her  closely  and 
finally  wrested  the  suit-case  from  her.  Seeing  his  success, 
Mrs.  Vining  yielded  him  hers  also.  He  let  Pennock 
trudge  with  hers.  And  so  they  walked  to  the  hotel  and 
marched  up  to  the  desk. 

Jaffer  and  Tuell  had  already  registered.  Eldon  thought 
they  might  at  least  have  waited  till  the  ladies  had  had 
first  choice.  He  was  surprised  to  hear  Sheila  and  Mrs. 
Vining  haggling  over  the  prices  of  lodging  and  choosing 
rooms  of  moderate  cost. 

He  had  no  chance  to  speak  to  them  at  the  performance 
or  after  it,  but  the  next  morning  he  hung  about  the  lobby 
till  train-time.  He  pretended  much  surprise  at  seeing 

72 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Sheila, — as  if  he  had  not  been  waiting  for  her!  He  was 
a  bad  actor.  Again  he  secured  the  carry-all  in  spite  of 
her  protests.  If  he  had  known  more  he  would  have 
seen  that  she  gave  up  to  avoid  a  battle.  But  she  dropped 
back  with  Pennock  and  left  him  to  walk  with  Mrs.  Vi- 
ning,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  assail  him  with  her  usual 
directness : 

"Young  man,  you're  very  nice  and  you  mean  very  well, 
but  you've  got  a  lot  to  learn.  Have  you  noticed  that  when 
the  company  gets  into  a  train  or  a  public  dining-room, 
everybody  settles  as  far  away  as  possible  from  everybody 
else?" 

Eldon  had  noticed  it.  It  had  shocked  him.  Mrs. 
Vining  went  on : 

"And  no  doubt  you've  seen  a  big,  husky  actor  let  a 
poor,  tired  actress  drag  her  own  baggage  to  a  far-off  hotel." 

Eldon  had  noted  that,  too,  with  deep  regret.  He  was 
astotinded  when  Mrs.  Vining  said: 

"Well,  that  actor  is  showing  that  actress  the  finest 
courtesy  he  can.  When  men  and  women  are  traveling 
this  way  on  business,  the  man  who  is  attentive  to  a  woman 
is  doing  her  a  very  dubious  kindness,  unless  they're 
married  or  expect  to  be." 

"Why?"  said  Eldon.  "Can't  he  pay  her  ordinary  hu 
man  courtesy?" 

"He'd  better  not,"  said  Mrs.  Vining,  "or  he'll  start 
the  other  members  of  the  company  and  the  gaping  crowd 
of  outsiders  to  whispering:  'Oh,  he's  carrying  her  valise 
now!  It's  a  sketch!'" 

"A  'sketch'?"  Eldon  murmured. 

"Yes,  a — an  alliance,  an  affair.  A  theatrical  troupe 
is  like  a  little  village  on  wheels.  Everybody  gossips. 
Everybody  imagines — builds  a  big  play  out  of  a  little 
scenario.  And  so  the  actor  who  is  a  true  gentleman  has 
to  keep  forgetting  that  he  is  one.  It's  a  penalty  we 
women  must  pay  for  earning  our  livings.  You  see  now> 
don't  you,  Mr.  Eldon?" 
6  73 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

He  bowed  and  blushed  to  realize  that  it  was  all  meant 
as  a  rebuke  to  his  forwardness.  He  had  been  treated  with 
consideration,  and  had  immediately  proceeded  to  make  a 
nuisance  of  himself.  He  had  no  right  to  carry  Sheila's 
burdens,  and  his  insistence  had  been  only  an  embarrass 
ment  to  her.  He  had  behaved  like  a  greedy  porter  at  a 
railroad  station  to  whom  one  surrenders  with  wrath  in 
order  to  silence  his  demands. 

He  had  not  progressed  so  far  as  he  thought.  His  train 
had  been  ordered  to  back  up.  When  he  had  placed 
Sheila's  baggage  and  Mrs.  Vining's  in  the  seats  they  chose 
in  the  day  coach,  he  declined  Sheila's  invitation  to  sit 
down,  and  stilked  in  the  smoking-car. 

The  towns  that  followed  Milton  were  as  stupid  as  Jaffer 
had  said  they  were.  The  people  who  lived  there  seemed 
to  love  them,  or  at  least  they  did  not  leave  them,  but 
they  were  dry  oases  for  the  lonely  traveler.  Few  of  the 
towns  had  even  a  statue,  and  most  of  those  that  had 
statues  would  have  been  the  richer  for  their  absence. 

Of  one  thing  Eldon  made  sure — that  he  would  never 
inflict  another  of  his  compromising  politenesses  on  Miss 
Sheila  Kemble.  He  avoided  her  so  ostentatiously  that 
the  other  members  of  the  company  noticed  it.  Those 
who  had  instantly  said  when  he  carried  her  valise,  "Aha! 
he  is  carrying  her  valise  now!"  were  presently  saying, 
"Oh,  he's  not  carrying  her  valise  now!" 


CHAPTER  X 

RADUALLY  the  company  worked  a  zigzag  passage 
to  Chicago,  where  it  was  booked  for  an  indefinite 
stay.  If  the  "business "  were  good,  it  would  be  announced 
that,  "owing  to  the  unprecedented  success,  it  has  been 
found  necessary  to  extend  the  run  originally  contem 
plated."  If  the  business  were  not  so  good,  it  would  be 
announced  that,  "owing  to  previous  bookings,  it  would 
unfortunately  be  impossible  to  extend  the  run  beyond 
the  next  two  weeks." 

Jaffer  was  saying  as  they  rolled  in:  "There's  no  telling 
in  advance  what  Chicago's  going  to  do  to  us.  New  York 
stood  for  this  rotten  show  for  a  whole  season;  Chicago 
may  be  too  wise  for  us.  I  hope  so.  It's  a  ghastly  town. 
The  Lake  winds  are  death  to  a  delicate  throat.  I  always 
lose  my  voice  control  in  Chicago." 

With  Jaffer  the  success  he  was  in  was  always  a  proof 
of  the  stupidity  of  the  public.  In  his  unending  reminis 
cences,  which  he  ran  serially  in  the  smoking-room  like 
another  Arabian  Nights,  the  various  failures  he  had  met 
were  variously  described.  Those  in  which  he  had  had  a 
go^od  part  were  "over  the  heads  of  the  swine";  those  in 
which  he  had  shone  dimly  were  "absolutely  the  worst 
plays  ever  concocted,  my  boy — hopeless  from  the  start. 
How  even  a  manager  could  fail  to  see  it  in  the  script  I 
can't  for  the  life  of  me  imagine." 

Old  Jim  Crumb  said:  "Chicago  is  a  far  better  judge  of 
a  play  than  New  York  is.  Chicago's  got  a  mind  of  her 
own.  She's  the  real  metropolis.  The  critics  have  got  a 
heart;  they  appreciate  honest  effort.  If  they  don't  like 

75 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

you  they  say  so  fairly,  without  any  of  the  brutality  of 
New  York."  Crumb's  last  appearance  in  Chicago  had 
been  in  a  highly  successful  play. 

Tuell  stopped  groaning  long  enough  to  growl:  "Don't 
you  believe  it!  Chicago's  jealous  of  New  York,  and  the 
critics  have  got  their  axes  out  for  anything  that  bears  the 
New  York  stamp.  If  they  don't  like  you,  they  lynch 
you — that's  all,  they  just  lynch  you."  Tuell's  last  ap 
pearance  there  had  been  with  a  failure. 

Eldon  felt  little  interest  in  the  matter  one  way  or  an 
other.  He  had  been  snubbed  in  his  romance.  The  other 
rdle  he  played  would  never  be  dignified  even  by  a  tap  of 
the  critical  bludgeon.  He  was  tired  of  the  stage. 

And  then  the  opportunity  he  had  prayed  for  fell  at  his 
feet,  after  he  had  ceased  to  pray  for  it. 

The  play  opened  on  a  Sunday  night.  It  was  Eldon's 
first  performance  of  a  play  on  the  Sabbath.  He  rather 
expected  something  to  come  through  the  roof.  But  the 
play  went  without  a  mishap.  The  applause  was  liberal, 
and  the  next  morning's  notices  were  enthusiastic. 

Sheila  was  picked  out  for  especial  praise.  The  leading 
woman,  Miss  Zelma  Griffen,  was  slighted.  She  was  very 
snappy  to  Sheila,  which  added  the  final  touch  to  Sheila's 
rapture. 

Old  Jaffer  was  complimented  and  remembered,  and  now 
he  was  loud  in  the  praises  of  the  town,  the  inspiring,  brac 
ing  ozone  from  the  Lake,  and  his  splendid  hotel.  Jim 
Crumb's  bit  as  a  farmer  was  mentioned,  and  his  previous 
appearance  recalled  with  "regret  that  he  had  not  more 
opportunity  to  reveal  his  remarkable  gifts  of  characteri 
zation." 

This  was  too  much  for  poor  Crumb.  He  went  about 
town  renewing  former  acquaintances  with  the  fervor  of 
a  far  voyager  who  has  come  home  to  stay.  When  he 
appeared  at  the  second  performance  his  speech  was  glu 
cose  and  his  gait  rippling.  In  his  one  scene  it'  was  his 

76 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

duty  to  bring  in  a  lantern  and  hold  it  over  an  automobile 
map  on  which  Sheila  and  Mrs.  Vining  were  trying  to  trace 
a  lost  road.  It  was  a  passage  of  some  dramatic  moment, 
but  Crumb  in  his  cups  made  unexpected  farce  of  it  by 
swinging  the  lantern  like  a  switchman. 

No  comic  genius  from  Aristophanes  via  Moliere  to  Hoyt 
has  ever  yet  devised  a  scene  that  will  convulse  an  audi 
ence  like  the  mistake  or  mishap  of  an  actor.  Poor,  be 
fuddled  Crumb's  wabbly  lantern  was  the  laughing  hit  of 
the  piece.  He  was  too  thick  tO'  be  rebuked  that  night. 
Friends  took  him  to  his  hotel  and  left  him  to  sleep  it  off. 

When  the  next  morning  he  realized  what  he  had  done, 
what  sacrilege  he  had  committed,  he  sought  relief  from 
insanity  in  a  hair  of  the  dog  that  bit  him.  He  was  soon 
mellow  enough  to  fall  a  victim  to  an  hallucination  that 
Tuesday  was  a  matinee  day.  He  appeared  at  the  theater 
at  half -past  one,  and  made  up  to  go  on.  He  fell  asleep 
waiting  for  his  cue,  and  was  discovered  when  his  dressing- 
room  mate  arrived  at  seven  o'clock.  Then  he  insisted  on 
descending  to  report  for  duty.  He  was  still  so  befogged 
that  Batterson  did  not  dare  let  him  ruin  another  perform 
ance.  He  addressed  to  Crumb  that  simple  phrase  which 
is  the  theatrical  death-warrant: 

"Hand  me  back  your  part." 

With  the  automatic  heroism  of  a  soldier  sentenced  to 
execution,  Crumb  staggered  to  his  room  and,  fetching  the 
brochure  from  his  trunk,  surrendered  it  to  the  higher 
power,  revealing  a  somewhat  shaky  majesty  of  despair. 

Eldon  was  standing  in  the  wings,  and  Batterson  thrust 
the  document  at  him  and  growled:  "You  say  you're  a 
great  actor.  I'm  from  Missouri.  Get  up  in  that  and 
show  me,  to-night." 

If  he  had  placed  a  spluttering  bomb  in  Eldon's  hands, 
and  told  him  to  blow  up  a  Czar  with  it,  Eldon  could  hardly 
have  felt  more  terrified. 


CHAPTER  XI 

ELDON  climbed  the  three  flights  of  iron  stairway  to 
his  cubby-hole  more  drunkenly  than  Crumb.  The 
opportunity  he  had  counted  on  was  his  and  he  was  afraid 
of  it.  This  was  the  sort  of  chance  that  had  given  great 
geniuses  their  start,  according  to  countless  legends.  And 
he  had  been  waiting  for  it,  making  ready  for  it. 

Weeks  before  during  the  rehearsals  and  during  the 
first  performances  he  had  hung  about  in  the  offing, 
memorizing  every  part,  till  he  had  found  himself  able  to 
reel  off  whole  scenes  with  a  perfection  and  a  vigor  that 
thrilled  him — when  he  was  alone.  Crumb's  r61e  had  been 
one  of  the  first  that  he  had  memorized.  But  now,  when 
he  propped  the  little  blue  book  against  his  make-up  box 
and  tried  to  read  the  dancing  lines,  they  seemed  to  have 
no  connection  whatsoever  with  the  play.  He  would  have 
sworn  he  had  never  heard  them.  He  had  been  told  that 
the  best  method  for  quickly  memorizing  a  part  was  to 
photograph  each  page  or  "side."  But  the  lines  danced 
before  him  at  an  intoxicated  speed  that  would  have  de 
fied  a  moving-picture  camera. 

He  mumbled  good  counsels  to  himself,  however,  as  if 
he  were  undertaking  the  rescue  of  a  drowning  heroine,  and 
at  length  the  letters  came  to  a  focus,  the  words  resumed 
their  familiarity. 

He  had  received  the  part  nearly  an  hour  before  the 
time  for  the  overture,  that  faint  rumor  which  is  to  the 
actor  what  the  bugle-call  is  to  the  soldier.  By  half  past 
seven  he  found  that  he  could  whisper  the  lines  to  himself 
without  a  slip. 

78 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

The  character  he  was  to  impersonate  did  not  appear 
until  the  third  act,  but  Eldon  was  in  the  wings  made  up 
and  on  tiptoe  with  readiness  when  the  first  curtain  rose. 
His  heart  went  up  with  it  and  lodged  in  his  pharynx,  where 
it  throbbed  chokingly. 

The  property-man  had  been  recruited  to  replace  Eldon 
as  the  taxicab-driver,  but  Eldon  was  on  such  tenter 
hooks  that  when  his  old  cue  came  for  entrance  he  started 
to  walk  on  as  usual.  Only  a  hasty  backward  shove  from 
the  arm  of  the  property-man  saved  him  from  a  public 
blunder. 

The  rest  of  the  play  seemed  to  unfold  itself  with  an 
unendurable  slowness.  The  severer  critics  had  remarked 
on  this. 

As  Eldon  watched,  the  lines  he  heard  kept  jostling 
the  lines  he  was  trying  to  remember  and  he  fell  into  a 
panic  of  uncertainty.  At  times  he  forgot  where  he  was 
and  interfered  with  the  entrances  and  exits  of  the  other 
actors,  yet  hardly  heard  the  rebukes  they  flung  at  him. 

Sheila,  following  one  of  her  cues  to  "exit  laughing 
L  2  E,"  ran  plump  into  Eldon's  arms.  He  was  as  startled 
as  a  sleep-walker  suddenly  awakened,  and  clung  to  her  to 
keep  from  falling.  His  stupor  was  pleasingly  troubled  by 
a  vivid  sense  of  how  soft  and  round  her  shoulders  were 
when  he  caught  them  in  his  hands. 

As  he  fell  back  out  of  her  way  he  trod  upon  Mrs.  Vi- 
ning's  favorite  toe  and  she  swore  at  him  with  an  old-comedy 
vigor.  She  wovild  have  none  of  his  apology,  and  the 
stage-manager  with  another  oath  ordered  him  to  his  room. 

Once  there,  he  fell  to  studying  his  lines  anew.  The 
more  he  whispered  them  to  himself  the  more  they  eluded 
him.  The  vital  problem  of  positions  began  to  harass  him. 
He  began  to  wonder  just  where  Crumb  had  stood. 

He  had  learned  from  watching  the  rehearsals  that  few 
things  upset  or  confuse  actors  like  a  shift  of  position. 
They  learned  their  lines  with  reference  to  the  geography 
of  the  stage  and  seemed  curiously  bewildered  if  the  actor 

79 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

whom  they  had  addressed  on  the  right  side  appeared  on 
the  left. 

Eldon  foresaw  himself  throwing  Sheila  and  Mrs.  Vining 
out  of  their  stride  by  standing  up-stage  when  he  should 
stand  down,  or  right  when  he  should  stand  left.  He  knew 
there  was  an  etiquette  about  "giving  the  stage"  to  the 
superior  characters.  He  remembered  one  rather  heated 
argument  in  which  Batterson  had  insinuated  that  old 
Mrs.  Vining  had  been  craftily  "stealing  the  stage"  from 
one  young  woman  who  was  selfish  enough  in  all  conscience, 
but  who  had  foolishly  imagined  that  the  closer  she  was 
to  the  audience  the  more  she  commanded  it. 

Eldon  was  disgusted  with  his  ability  to  forget  what  he 
had  watched  incessantly.  He  was  to  make  his  entrance 
from  the  left,  yet,  as  he  recollected  it,  Crumb  had  stood 
to  the  right  of  Sheila  as  he  held  the  lantern  over  the  map. 
Now  he  wondered  how  he  was  to  get  round  her.  This  bit 
of  stage  mechanism  had  always  impressed  him.  He  had 
seen  endless  time  spent  by  the  stage-manager  in  trying  to 
•devise  a  natural  and  inconspicuous  method  for  attaining 
the  simple  end  of  moving  an  actor  from  one  side  of  a  table 
to  the  other  side.  At  first  he  would  have  said,  bluntly, 
"The  way  to  go  round  a  table  is  to  go  round  it."  But  he 
had  finally  realized  that  the  audience  must  always  be 
taken  into  account  while  seeming  always  to  be  ignored. 

The  more  he  pondered  his  brief  r61e  the  more  intricate 
it  grew.  It  began  to  take  on  the  importance  of  Hamlet. 
He  repeated  it  over  and  over  until  he  fell  into  a  panic  of 
aphasia. 

Suddenly  he  heard  the  third  act  called  and  ran  down  the 
steps  to  secure  his  lantern.  It  was  not  to  be  found.  The 
property-man  was  not  to  be  found.  When  both  were 
discovered,  the  lighting  of  the  lantern  proved  too  in 
tricate  for  Eldon's  bethumbed  fingers.  The  disgusted 
property-man  performed  it  for  him.  He  took  his  place 
in  the  wings. 

Agues  and  fevers  made  a  hippodrome  of  his  frame. 

80 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

He  saw  his  time  approaching.  He  saw  Sheila  unfolding 
the  road-map,  scanning  it  closely.  She  was  going  to  see 
the  farmer  approaching  with  a  lantern.  She  was  going  to 
call  to  him  to  lend  her  the  light  of  it.  Now  she  saw  him. 
She  called  to  him.  But  he  must  not  start  yet,  for  he 
was  supposed  to  be  at  a  distance.  She  called  again. 
She  spoke  to  her  aunt. 

Now  is  the  time!     No,  not  yet!    Now!    Not  yet! 

"Why,  here  you  are!"  said  Sheila. 

But  he  was  not  there.  He  was  a  cigar  Indian  riveted 
to  the  floor.  She  beckoned  to  him,  and  summoned  him 
in  a  stage  whisper,  but  he  did  not  move.  Batterson 
dashed  from  his  position  near  the  curtain  and  shoved 
him  forward,  with  a  husky  comment,  "Go  on,  you — 

Eldon  never  knew  what  Batterson  called  him,  but  he 
was  sure  that  he  deserved  it.  He  started  like  a  man  who 
has  fallen  out  of  bed.  He  tripped,  dropped  to  one  knee, 
recovered  himself  with  the  lurch  of  a  stumbling  horse,  and 
plunged  into  the  scene. 

The  quick  and  easy  way  to  extinguish  a  lantern  is  to 
lower  it  quickly,  and  lift  it  with  a  snap.  That  is  what 
Eldon  did.  He  found  himself  in  the  presence  of  two 
actresses  on  a  little  strip  of  dark  beach  with  the  audience 
massed  threateningly  before  it  like  a  tremendous  phos 
phorescent  billow  curved  inward  for  the  crash.  The  bil 
low  shook  a  little  as  Eldon  stumbled;  a  few  titters  ran 
through  it  in  a  whispering  froth. 


CHAPTER   XII 

ELDON  was  unaware  that  his  light  was  out.  He  was 
unaware  of  almost  everything  important.  He  for 
got  his  opening  lines  and  marched  across  the  stage  with 
the  granite  tread  of  the  statue  that  visited  Don  Juan. 

Sheila  improvised  at  once  a  line  to  supply  what  Eldon 
forgot.  But  she  could  not  improvise  a  flame  on  a  wick. 
Indeed,  she  had  not  noticed  that  the  flame  was  missing. 
Even  when  Eldon,  with  the  grace  of  a  scarecrow,  held 
out  the  cold  black  lantern,  she  went  on  studying  the  map 
and  cheerily  recited: 

4 '  Oh,  that's  better !    Now  we  can  see  just  where  we  are. ' ' 

The  earthquake  of  joy  that  smote  the  audience  caught 
her  unaware.  The  instant  enormity  of  the  bolt  of 
laughter  almost  shook  her  from  her  feet.  They  do  well 
to  call  it  "bringing  down  the  house."  There  was  a 
sound  as  of  splitting  timbers  and  din  upon  din  as  the 
gallery  emptied  its  howls  into  the  orchestra  and  the  or 
chestra  sent  up  shrieks  of  its  own.  The  sound  was  like 
the  sound  that  Samson  must  have  heard  when  he  pulled 
the  temple  in  upon  him. 

Sheila  and  Mrs.  Vining  were  struck  with  the  panic  that 
such  unexpected  laughter  brings  to  the  actor.  They 
clutched  at  their  garments  to  make  sure  that  none  of  them 
had  slipped  their  moorings.  They  looked  at  each  other 
for  news.  Then  they  saw  the  dreadfully  solemn  Eldon 
holding  aloft  the  fireless  lantern. 

The  sense  of  incongruity  that  makes  people  laugh  got 
them,  too.  They  turned  their  backs  to  the  audience  and 
fought  with  their  uncontrollable  features.  Few  things 

82 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

delight  an  audience  like  the  view  of  an  actress  broken 
up.  It  is  so  successful  that  in  comic  operas  they 
counterfeit  it. 

The  audience  was  now  a  whirlpool.  Eldon  might  have 
been  one  of  the  cast-iron  effigies  that  hold  up  lanterns 
on  gate-posts;  he  could  not  have  been  more  rigid  or  more 
unreal.  His  own  brain  was  in  a  whirlpool,  too,  but  not  of 
mirth.  Out  of  the  eddies  emerged  a  line.  He  seized  it  as 
a  hope  of  safety  and  some  desperate  impulse  led  him  to 
shout  it  above  the  clamor: 

"  It  ain't  a  very  big  lantern,  ma'am,  but  it  gives  a  heap 
o'  light." 

Sheila's  answer  was  lost  in  the  renewed  hubbub,  but 
it  received  no  further  response  from  Eldon.  His  memory 
was  quite  paralyzed;  he  couldn't  have  told  his  own  name. 
He  heard  Sheila  murmuring  to  comfort  him : 

"Can't  you  light  the  lantern  again?  Don't  be  afraid. 
Just  light  it.  Haven't  you  a  match?  Don't  be  afraid!" 

If  Eldon  had  carried  the  stolen  fire  of  Prometheus  in 
his  hand  he  could  not  have  kindled  tinder  with  it.  He 
heard  Mrs.  Vining  growling: 

"Get  off,  you  damned  fool,  get  off!" 

But  the  line  between  his  brain  and  his  legs  had  also 
blown  out  a  fuse. 

The  audience  was  almost  seasick  with  laughter.  Ribs 
were  aching  and  cheeks  were  dripping  with  tears.  People 
were  suffering  with  their  mirth  and  the  reinfection  of 
laughter  that  a  large  audience  sets  up  in  itself.  Eldon's 
glazed  eyes  and  stunned  ears  somehow  realized  the 
activity  of  Batterson,  who  was  epileptic  in  the  wings  and 
howling  in  a  strangled  voice : 

"Come  off,  you — !  Come  off,  or — I'll  come  and  kick 
you  off!" 

And  now  Eldon  was  more  afraid  of  leaving  than  of 
staying. 

In  desperation  Sheila  took  him  by  the  elbow  and  started 
him  on  his  way.  Just  as  the  hydrophobic  Batterson  was 

83  " 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

about  to  shout,  "Ring!"  Eldon  slipped  slowly  from  the 
stage. 

Little  Batterson  met  the  blinded  Cyclops  and  was  only 
restrained  from  knocking  him  down  by  a  fear  that  he 
might  knock  him  back  into  the  scene.  As  he  brandished 
his  arms  about  the  giant  he  resembled  an  infuriated  spider 
attacking  a  helpless  caterpillar. 

Batterson's  oration  was  plentifully  interlarded  with 
simple  old  Anglo-Saxon  terms  that  can  only  be  answered 
with  a  blow.  But  Eldon  was  incapable  of  resentment. 
He  understood  little  of  what  was  said  except  the  reiterated 
line,  "If  you  ever  ask  me  again  to  let  you  play  a  part 
I'll—" 

Whatever  he  threatened  left  Eldon  languid ;  the  furthest 
thing  from  his  thoughts  was  a  continuance  upon  the 
abominable  career  he  had  insanely  attempted. 

He  stalked  with  iron  feet  up  the  iron  stairs  to  his 
dressing-room,  put  on  his  street  clothes,  and  went  to  his 
hotel.  He  had  forgotten  to  remove  his  greast-paint,  the 
black  on  his  eyebrows  and  under  his  eyes,  or  the  rouge 
upon  his  mouth.  A  number  of  passers-by  gave  him 
the  entire  sidewalk  and  stared  after  him,  wondering 
whether  he  were  on  his  way  to  the  madhouse  or  the 
hospital. 

The  immensity  of  the  disaster  to  the  play  was  its  sal 
vation.  The  audience  had  laughed  itself  to  a  state  of 
exhaustion.  The  yelps  of  hilarity  ended  in  sobs  of 
fatigue.  The  well-bred  were  ashamed  of  their  mis 
behavior  and  the  intelligent  were  disgusted  to  realize 
that  they  had  abused  the  glorious  privilege  of  laughter 
and  debauched  themselves  with  mirth  over  an  unim 
portant  mishap  to  an  unfortunate  actor  who  had  done 
nothing  intrinsically  humorous. 

Sheila  and  Mrs.  Vining  went  on  with  the  scene,  mak 
ing  up  what  was  necessary  and  receiving  the  abjectly 
submissive  audience's  complete  sympathy  for  their  plight 

84 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

and  extra  approval  for  their  ingenuity  in  extricating  them 
selves  from  it.  When  the  curtain  fell  upon  the  act  there 
was  unusual  applause. 

To  an  actor  the  agony  of  "going  up"  in  the  lines,  or 
"fading,"  is  not  much  funnier  after  the  first  surprise 
than  the  death  or  wounding  of  a  soldier  is  to  his  comrade. 
The  warrior  in  the  excitement  of  battle  may  laugh  hys 
terically  when  a  friend  or  enemy  is  ludicrously  maimed, 
when  he  crumples  up  and  grimaces  sardonically,  or  is  sent 
heels  over  head  by  the  impact  of  a  shell.  But  there  is 
little  comfort  in  the  laughter  since  the  same  fate  may 
come  to  himself. 

The  actor  has  this  grinning  form  of  death  always  at  his 
elbow.  He  may  forget  his  lines  because  they  are  un 
familiar  or  because  they  are  old,  because  another  actor 
gives  a  slightly  different  cue,  some  one  person  laughs  too 
loudly  in  the  audience,  or  coughs,  or  a  baby  cries,  or  for 
any  one  of  a  hundred  reasons.  That  fear  is  never  absent 
from  the  stage.  It  makes  every  performance  a  fresh 
ordeal.  And  the  actor  who  has  faltered  meets  more 
sympathy  than  blame. 

If  Eldon  had  not  sneaked  out  of  the  theater  and  had 
remained  until  the  end  of  the  play  he  would  have  found 
that  he  had  more  friends  than  before  in  the  company. 
Even  Batterson,  after  his  tirade  was  over,  regretted  its 
violence,  and  blamed  himself.  He  had  sent  a  green  actor 
out  on  the  stage  without  rehearsal.  Batterson  was  almost 
tempted  to  apologize — almost. 

But  Eldon  was  not  to  be  found.  He  was  immured  in 
the  shabby  room  of  his  cheap  hotel  sick  with  nausea  and 
feverish  with  shame. 

Somehow  he  lived  the  long  night  out.  He  read  the 
morning  papers  fiercely  through.  There  were  no  head 
lines  on  the  front  page  describing  his  ruinous  incapacity. 
There  was  not  even  a  word  of  allusion  to  him  or  his 
tragedy  in  the  theatrical  notices.  He  was  profoundly 
glad  of  his  obscurity  and  profoundly  convinced  that  ob- 

85 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

scurity  was  where  he  belonged.  He  wrote  out  a  note  of 
humble  apology  and  resignation.  He  resolved  to  send  it 
by  messenger  and  never  to  go  near  that  theater  again,  or 
any  other  after  he  had  removed  his  trunk. 

With  the  utmost  reluctance  he  forced  himself  to  go  back 
to  the  scene  of  his  shame.  The  stage-door  keeper  greeted 
him  with  a  comforting  indifference.  He  had  evidently 
known  nothing  of  what  had  happened.  Stage-door 
keepers  never  do.  None  of  the  actors  was  about,  and  the 
theater  was  as  lonely  and  musty  as  the  tomb  of  the 
Capulets  before  Romeo  broke  in  upon  Juliet's  sleep. 

Eldon  mounted  to  his  dressing-room  and  stared  with  a 
rueful  eye  at  the  make-up  box  which  he  had  bought  with 
all  the  pride  a  boy  feels  in  his  first  chest  of  tools.  He  tried 
to  tell  himself  that  he  was  glad  to  be  quit  of  the  business 
of  staining  his  face  with  these  unmanly  colors  and  of 
rubbing  off  the  stains  with  effeminate  cold-creams.  He 
threw  aside  the  soiled  and  multicolored  towel  with  a 
gesture  of  disdain.  But  he  was  too  honest  to  deceive  him 
self.  The  more  he  denounced  the  actor's  calling  the  more 
he  denounced  himself  for  having  been  incompetent  in  it. 
He  writhed  at  the  memory  of  the  hardships  he  had  under 
gone  in  gaining  a  foothold  on  the  stage  and  at  the  pol 
troonery  of  leaping  overboard  to  avoid  being  thrown 
overboard. 

As  he  left  the  theater  to  find  an  expressman  to  call  for 
his  trunk  he  looked  into  the  letter-box  where  there  was 
almost  never  a  letter  for  him.  To  his  surprise  he  found 
his  name  on  a  graceful  envelope  gracefully  indited.  He 
opened  it  and  read  the  signature  first.  It  was  a  note 
from  Sheila. 

Eldon's  eyes  fairly  bulged  out  of  his  head  with  amazed 
enchantment.  His  heart  ached  with  joy.  He  went  back 
to  his  dressing-room  to  read  the  letter  over  and  over. 

DEAR  MR.  ELDON, — Auntie  John  and  I  tried  to  see  you  last 
night,  but  you  had  gone.  She  was  afraid  that  you  would  grieve 

86 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

too  deeply  over  the  mishap.  It  was  only  what  might  have 
happened  to  anybody.  Auntie  John  says  that  she  has  known 
some  of  the  most  famous  actors  to  do  far  worse.  Sir  Charles 
Wyndham  went  up  in  his  lines  and  was  fired  at  his  first  appear 
ance.  She  wants  to  tell  you  some  of  the  things  that  happened 
to  her.  They  had  to  ring  down  on  her  once.  She  wants  you  to 
come  over  to  our  hotel  and  have  tea  with  us  this  afternoon. 
Please  do! 

Heartily, 

SHEILA  KEMBLE. 

There  was  nothing  much  in  the  letter  except  an  evident 
desire  to  make  light  of  a  tragedy  and  cheer  a  despondent 
soul  across  a  swamp.  Eldon  did  not  even  note  that  it 
was  mainly  about  Aunt  John.  To  him  the  letter  was 
luminous  with  a  glow,  of  its  own.  He  kissed  the  paper 
a  dozen  times.  He  resolved  to  conquer  the  stage  or  die. 
The  stage  should  be  the  humble  stepping-stone  to  the 
conquest  of  Sheila  Kemble.  Thereafter  it  should  be  the 
scene  of  their  partnership  in  art.  He  would  play  Romeo 
to  her  Juliet,  and  they  should  play  other .  r61es  together 
till  "Mr.  and  Mrs.  Eldon"  should  be  as  famous  for  their 
art  as  for  their  domestic  bliss. 

Had  she  not  already  made  a  new  soul  of  him,  scattering 
his  fright  with  a  few  words  and  recalling  him  to  his  duty 
and  his  opportunity?  He  would  redeem  himself  to-night. 
To-night  there  should  be  no  stumbling,  no  gloom  in  the 
lantern,  no  gaiety  in  the  audience  during  his  scene.  To 
night  he  would  show  Batterson  how  little  old  Crumb  had 
really  made  of  the  part,  drunk  or  sober. 

He  placed  the  letter  as  close  to  his  heart  as  he  could 
get  it,  and  it  warmed  him  like  a  poultice.  He  would  go 
shave  himself  again  and  brush  up  a  bit  for  Sheila's  tea- 
fete. 

As  he  groped  slowly  down  the  dark  stairway  he  heard 
voices  on  the  stage.  He  recognized  Crumb's  husky  tones: 

"If  you'll  give  me  one  more  chance,  Val,  I  swear  I'll 
never  disappoint  you  again.  I'm  on  the  water-mobile 
for  good  this  time." 

87 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Eldon  felt  sorry  for  the  poor  old  man.  He  paused  to 
hear  Batterson's  epitaph  on  him: 

"Well,  Jim,  I'll  give  you  another  try.  But  it's  against 
my  will." 

"Oh,  thank  you,  thank  you,  Val !" 

"Don't  thank  me.  Thank  that  dub,  Eldon.  If  he 
hadn't  thrown  the  scene  last  night  you'd  never  get  an 
other  look-in.  No  more  would  you  if  I  could  pick  up 
anybody  here.  So  you  can  go  on  to-night,  but  if  your 
foot  slips  again,  Jim,  so  help  me.  you'll  never  put  your 
head  in  another  of  our  theaters." 

As  Crumb's  heart  went  up,  Eldon's  followed  the  see 
saw  law.  All  his  hopes  and  plans  were  collapsed.  He 
would  not  go  to  Sheila's  tea  with  this  disgrace  upon  him 
and  sit  like  a  death's-head  in  her  presence. 

And  how  could  he  present  himself  at  her  hotel  in  the 
shabby  clothes  he  wore?  She  and  her  aunt  were  living 
expensively  in  Chicago.  It  was  good  advertisement  to 
live  well  there;  at  least  it  was  a  bad  advertisement  not 
to.  It  was  a  bad  advertisement  for  Eldon  to  appear 
anywhere.  He  was  under  the  buffets  of  fortune.  But 
he  tore  up  his  resignation. 

Now  of  all  times  he  needed  the  comfort  of  her  cheer. 
Now  of  all  times  he  could  not  ask  it  or  accept  it.  He 
wrote  her  a  note  of  devout  gratitude,  and  said  that  a 
previous  engagement  with  an  old  college  friend  prevented 
his  accepting  her  gracious  hospitality.  His  old  college 
friend  was  himself,  and  they  sat  in  his  boarding-house  cell 
and  called  each  other  names. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

ELDON  resumed  the  livery  of  the  taxicab-driver  and 
spoke  his  two  lines  each  night  with  his  accustomed 
grace,  and  received  his  accustomed  tribute  of  silence.  He 
arrived  on  the  stage  just  before  his  cue,  and  he  went  to 
his  room  just  after  his  exit. 

He  avoided  Sheila,  and  she,  feeling  repulsed,  turned 
her  attention  from  him.  Friends  of  her  father  and 
mother  and  friends  of  her  school  days  besieged  her  with 
entertainment.  People  who  took  pride  in  saying  they 
knew  somebody  on  the  stage  sought  introductions.  Rich 
or  handsome  young  men  were  presented  to  her  at  every 
turn.  They  poured  their  praises  and  their  prayers  into 
her  pretty  ears,  but  got  no  receipt  for  them  nor  any 
merchandise  of  favor.  She  was  not  quite  out  of  the 
hilarious  stage  of  girlhood.  She  said  with  more  philosophy 
than  she  realized  that  she  "had  no  use  for  men."  But 
they  were  all  the  more  excited  by  her  evasive  charms. 
Her  prettiness  was  ripening  into  beauty  and  the  glow  of 
youth  from  within  gave  her  a  more  shining  aureole  than 
even  the  ingenuities  of  stage  make-up  and  lighting. 
Homes  of  wealth  were  open  to  her  and  her  growing  clientele 
frequented  the  theater.  Miss  Griffen  was  voted  common, 
and  left  to  the  adulation  of  the  fast  young  men. 

The  traveling-manager  of  the  company  was  not  slow  to 
notice  this.  He  saw  that  Sheila  had  not  only  the  rare 
gifts  of  dramatic  instinct  and  appeal,  but  that  she  had 
the  power  of  attracting  the  approval  of  distinguished 
people  as  well  as  of  the  general.  Men  of  all  ages  delighted 
in  her;  and  this  was  still  more  important — women  of  all 
7  89 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

ages  liked  her,  paid  to  see  her.  Women  who  gave  great 
receptions  in  brand-new  palaces  bought  up  all  the  boxes 
or  several  rows  in  the  orchestra  in  honor  of  Sheila  Kemble. 
School-girls  clambered  to  the  balcony  and  shop-girls  to 
the  gallery  to  see  Sheila  Kemble. 

The  listening  manager  heard  the  outgoing  voices  again 
and  again  saying  such  things  as,  "It's  the  third  time  I've 
seen  this.  It's  not  much  of  a  play,  but  Sheila  Kemble — 
isn't  she  sweet?" 

The  company-manager  and  the  house-manager  and  the 
press  agent  all  wrote  to  Reben,  the  manager-in-chief : 

"Keep  your  eye  on  Kemble.  She's  got  draught.  She 
makes  'em  come  again." 

And  Reben,  who  had  made  himself  a  plutocrat  with 
twenty  companies  on  the  road,  and  a  dozen  theaters, 
owned  or  leased — Reben  who  had  grown  rich  by  studying 
his  public,  planned  to  make  another  fortune  by  exploiting 
Sheila  Kemble.  He  kept  the  secret  to  himself,  but  he 
set  on  foot  a  still  hunt  for  the  play  that  should  make  her 
while  she  seemed  to  be  making  it.  He  schemed  how  to 
get  her  signature  to  a  five-year  contract  without  exciting 
her  cupidity  to  a  duel  with  his  own.  He  gave  orders  to 
play  her  up  gradually  in  the  publicity.  The  thoughts  of 
managers  are  long,  long  thoughts. 

He  gave  out  an  interview  to  the  effect  that  what  the 
public  wanted  was  "Youth — youth,  that  beautiful  flower 
which  is  the  dearest  memory  of  the  old,  and  the  golden 
delight  of  the  young." 

His  chief  publicity  man,  Starr  Coleman,  a  reformed 
dramatic  critic,  wrote  the  interview  for  Reben,  explained 
it  to  him,  and  was  proud  of  it  with  the  vicarious  pride  of 
those  strange  scribes  whose  lives  are  devoted  to  getting 
for  others  what  they  deny  to  themselves. 

Reben  had  told  Coleman  to  play  up  strong  his  belief  in 
the  American  dramatist,  particularly  the  young  dramatist. 
Reben  always  did  this  just  before  he  set  out  on  his  annual 
European  shopping-tour  among  the  foreign  play-bazars. 

90 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Over  there  he  could  inspect  the  finished  products  of  expert 
craftsmen;  he  could  see  their  machines  in  operation,  in 
lieu  of  buying  pigs  in  pokes  from  ambitious  Yankees  who 
learned  their  trade  at  the  managers'  expense. 

This  widely  copied  "Youth"  interview  brought  down 
on  Reben's  play-bureau  a  deluge  of  American  manuscripts, 
almost  all  of  them  devoid  of  theme  or  novelty,  redolent  of 
no  passion  except  the  passion  for  writing  a  play,  and  all 
of  them  crude  in  workmanship.  Reben  kept  a  play- 
reader — or  at  least  a  play-rejector,  and  paid  him  a  mod 
erate  salary  to  glance  over  submitted  manuscripts  so 
that  Reben  could  make  a  bluff  at  having  read  them  before 
he  returned  them.  This  timid  person  surprised  Reben 
one  day  by  saying: 

"There's  a  play  here  with  a  kind  of  an  idea  in  it.  It's 
hopeless  as  it  stands,  of  course,  but  it  might  be  worked 
over  a  little.  It's  written  by  a  man  named  Vicksburg, 
or  Vickery,  or  something  like  that.  Funny  thing — he  sug 
gests  that  Sheila  Kemble  would  be  the  ideal  woman  for 
the  principal  part.  And,  do  you  know,  I've  been  thinking 
she  has  the  makings  of  a  star  some  day.  Had  you  ever 
thought  of  that?" 

"No,"  said  Reben,  craftily. 

"Well,  I  believe  she'll  bear  watching." 

In  after-years  this  play-returner  used  to  say,  "I  put 
Reben  on  to  the  idea  that  there  was  star  material  in 
Kemble,  before  he  ever  thought  of  it  himself." 

But  long  before  either  of  them  thought  of  Sheila  Kemble 
as  a  star,  that  destiny  had  been  dreamed  and  planned  for 
her  by  Sheila  Kemble. 

Frivolous  as  she  appeared  on  the  stage  and  off,  her 
pretty  head  was  full  of  sonorous  ambitions.  That  head 
was  not  turned  by  the  whirlwinds  of  adulation,  or  drugged 
by  the  bouquets  of  flattery,  because  it  was  full  of  self- 
criticism.  She  was  struggling  for  expressions  that  she 
could  not  get;  she  was  groping,  listening,  studying,  trying, 
discarding,  replacing. 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

She  thought  she  was  free  from  any  nonsense  of  love. 
Nonsense  should  not  thwart  her  progress  and  make  a  fool 
of  her,  as  it  had  of  so  many  others.  It  should  not  in 
terrupt  her  career  or  ruin  it  as  it  had  so  many  others. 
She  would  make  friends  with  men,  oh  yes.  They  were  so 
much  more  sensible,  as  a  rule,  than  women,  except  when 
they  grew  sentimental.  And  that  was  a  mere  form  of 
preliminary  sparring  with  most  of  them.  Once  a  girl 
made  a  fellow  understand  that  she  was  not  interested  in 
spoony  nonsense,  he  became  himself  and  gave  his  mind  a 
chance.  And  all  the  while  nature  was  rendering  her  more 
ready  to  command  love  from  without,  less  ready  to  with 
stand  love  from  within.  She  was  becoming  more  and 
more  of  an  actress.  But  still  faster  and  still  more  was  she 
becoming  a  woman. 

While  Sheila  was  drafting  herself  a  future,  Eldon  was 
gnashing  his  teeth  in  a  pillory  of  inaction.  He  could 
make  no  step  forward  and  he  could  not  back  out.  He 
had  taken  cheap  and  nasty  lodgings  in  the  same  boarding- 
house  with  Vincent  Tuell,  who  added  to  his  depression 
by  his  constant  distress.  Tuell  could  not  sleep  nights 
or  days;  he  filled  Eldon's  ears  with  endless  denunciations 
of  the  stage  and  with  cynical  advice  to  chuck  it  while  he 
could.  Eldon  would  probably  have  taken  Tuell's  advice 
if  Tuell  had  not  urged  it  so  tyrannically.  In  self-defense 
Eldon  would  protest: 

"Why  don't  you  leave  it  yourself,  man?  You  ought  to 
be  in  the  hospital  or  at  home  being  nursed." 

And  Tuell  wotdd  snarl:  "Oh,  I'd  chuck  it  quick  enough 
if  I  could.  But  I've  got  no  other  trade,  and  there's  the 
pair  of  kiddies  in  school — and  the  wife.  She's  sick,  too, 
and  I'm  here.  God!  what  a  business!  It  wouldn't  be  so 
bad  if  I  were  getting  anywhere  except  older.  But  I've 
got  a  rotten  part  and  I'm  rotten  in  it.  Every  night  I 
have  to  breeze  in  and  breeze  out  and  fight  like  the  devil 
to  keep  from  dying  on  the  job.  And  never  a  laugh  do 

92 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

I  get.  It's  one  of  those  parts  that  reads  funny  and  re 
hearses  the  company  into  convulsions  and  then  plays  like 
a  column  from  the  telephone-book.  I've  done  everything 
I  could.  I  put  in  all  the  old  sure-fire  business.  I  never 
lie  down.  I  trip  over  rugs,  I  make  funny  faces,  I  wear 
funny  clothes,  but  does  anybody  smile? — nagh!  I  can't 
even  fool  the  critics.  I  haven't  had  a  clipping  I  could  send 
home  to  the  wife  since  I  left  the  big  town." 

Eldon  had  been  as  puzzled  as  Tuell  was.  He  had 
watched  the  expert  actor  using  an  encyclopedia  of  tricks, 
and  never  achieving  success.  Tuell  usually  came  off  drip 
ping  with  sweat.  The  moment  he  reached  the  wings  his 
grin  fell  from  him  like  a  cheap  comic  mask  over  a  tragic 
grimace  of  real  pain  and  despair.  In  addition  to  his 
mental  distress,  his  physical  torment  was  incessant.  In 
his  boarding-house  Tuell  gave  himself  up  to  lamentations 
without  end.  Eldon  begged  him  to  see  a  doctor,  but 
Tuell  did  not  believe  in  doctors. 

"They  always  want  to  get  their  knives  into  you,"  he 
would  growl.  "They're  worse  than  the  critics." 

One  day  Eldon  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  young 
physician  named  Edie,  who  had  recently  hung  a  sign 
in  the  front  window  and  used  the  parlor  as  an  office 
during  certain  morning  hours.  Patients  came  rarely,  and 
the  physician  berated  his  profession  as  violently  as  Tuell 
his.  Eldon  persuaded  the  doctor  to  employ  some  of  his 
leisure  in  examining  Tuell.  He  persuaded  Tuell  to  submit, 
and  the  doctor's  verdict  came  without  hesitation  or  delicacy : 

"Appendicitis,  old  man.  The  quicker  you're  operated 
on  the  better  for  you." 

"What  did  I  tell  you?"  Tuell  snarled.  "Didn't  I  say 
they  were  like  critics?  Their  only  interest  in  you  is  to 
knife  you." 

The  young  doctor  laughed.  "Perhaps  the  critics  turn 
up  the  truth  now  and  then,  too." 

But  Tuell  answered,  bitterly:  "Well,  I've  got  to  stand 
them.  I  haven't  got  to  stand  for  you  other  butchers." 

93 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Eldon  apologized  for  his  friend's  rudeness,  but  the  doc 
tor  took  no  offense:  "  It's  his  pain  that's  talking,"  he  said. 
"He's  a  sick  man.  He  doesn't  know  how  sick  he  is." 

One  matinee  day  Tuell  was  like  a  hyena  in  the  wings. 
He  swore  even  at  Batterson.  On  the  stage  he  was  more 
violently  merry  than  ever.  After  the  performance  Eldon 
looked  into  his  dressing-room  and  asked  him  to  go  to  din 
ner  with  him.  Tuell  refused  gruffly.  He  would  not  eat 
to-day.  He  would  not  take  off  his  make-up.  The  sweat 
was  everywhere  about  his  greasy  face.  His  jaw  hung 
down  and  he  panted  like  a  sick  dog.  Eldon  offered  to 
bring  him  in  some  food — sandwiches  or  something.  Tuell 
winced  with  nausea  at  the  mention.  Then  an  anguish 
twisted  through  him  like  a  great  steel  gimlet.  He  groaned, 
unashamed.  Eldon  could  only  watch  in  ignorant  help 
lessness.  When  the  spasm  was  over  he  said: 

"You've  got  to  have  a  doctor,  old  man." 

"I  guess  so,"  Tuell  sighed.  "Get  that  young  fellow, 
Edie.  He  won't  rob  me  much.  And  he'll  wait  for  his 
fee." 

Eldon  made  all  haste  to  fetch  Edie  from  the  boarding- 
house.  They  returned  to  find  Tuell  on  the  floor  of  his 
room,  writhing  and  moaning,  unheeded  in  the  deserted 
theater.  The  doctor  gave  Eldon  a  telephone  number 
and  told  him  to  demand  an  ambulance  at  once. 

Tuell  heard  the  word,  and  broke  out  in  such  fierce 
protest  that  the  doctor  countermanded  the  order. 

"  I  can't  go  to  any  hospital  now,"  Tuell  raged.  "Haven't 
you  any  sense?  You  know  there's  an  evening  perform 
ance.  Get  me  through  to-night,  and  I  can  rest  all  day 
to-morrow.  I've  got  to  play  to-night.  I've  got  to! 
There's  no  understudy  ready." 

He  played.  They  set  a  chair  for  him  in  the  wings  and 
the  physician  waited  there  for  him,  piercing  his  skin  with 
pain-deadening  drugs  every  time  he  left  the  stage.  There 
was  sympathy  enough  from  the  company.  Even  Batter- 
son  was  gentle,  his  fierce  eyes  fiercer  with  the  cruelty  of 

94 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

the  situation.  The  house  was  packed,  and  "ringing  down 
on  capacity"  is  not  done. 

Tuell  sat  in  a  stupor,  breathing  hard  like  a  groggy  prize 
fighter.  But  whenever  his  cue  came  it  woke  him  as  if  a 
ringside  gong  had  shrilled.  He  flung  off  his  suffering  and 
marched  out  to  his  punishment.  Only,  to-night,  somehow, 
he  lacked  his  usual  speed.  The  suffering  and  the  bromides 
dulled  him  so  that  in  place  of  dashing  on  the  stage  he 
sauntered  on;  in  place  of  slamming  his  lines  back  he 
just  uttered  them. 

And  somehow  the  laughter  came  that  had  never  come 
before — the  laughter  the  author  had  imagined  and  had 
won  from  the  company  at  the  first  reading  from  the 
script. 

From  the  wings  they  could  see  Tuell's  knuckles  whiten 
where  he  clung  to  a  chair  to  keep  from  falling. 

The  audience  loved  Tuell  to-night,  never  suspected  his 
anguishes,  and  waited  for  him,  laughed  when  he  appeared. 
For  his  final  exit  he  had  always  stumbled  off,  whooping 
with  stage  laughter.  It  had  always  resounded  unac 
companied.  To-night  he  was  so  spent  that  he  was 
capable  only  of  a  dry  little  chuckle.  To  his  ears  it  was 
the  old  uproar.  To  the  audience  it  was  the  delicious  giggle 
of  this  spring's  wind  in  last  year's  leaves.  It  tickled  the 
multitude  and  all  those  united  titters  made  a  thunder. 

Tuell  staggered  past  the  dead-line  of  the  wings  and  fell 
forward  into  Eldon's  arms,  whispering: 

"I  got  'em  that  time.     Damn  'em,  I  got  'em  at  last." 

Eldon  helped  him  to  his  chair,  helped  lift  him  in  his 
chair  and  carry  him  to  the  ambulance.  Tuell  didn't  know 
whither  they  were  taking  him.  He  clawed  at  Eldon's 
arm  and  muttered: 

"  I  must  write  to  the  wife  and  tell  her  how  I  killed  'em 
to-night.  And  I've  got  the  trick  now.  I've  just  found 
the  secret — just  to-night.  Of  course  there  wouldn't  be  a 
critic  there.  Oh  no,  of  course  not." 

But  there  was  a  Critic  there. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

'"P  HE  next  morning,  as  Eldon  was  leaving  his  boarding- 
1  house  to  call  on  Tuell  at  the  hospital,  he  was  as 
tounded  to  see  Batterson  at  the  foot  of  the  steps. 

"I'm  looking  for  you,"  said  the  stage-manager. 

Batterson's  eyes  were  so  bloodshot  and  so  wet  that 
Eldon  stared  his  surprise.  Batterson  grumbled: 

"  No,  I'm  not  drunk.     Tried  to  get  drunk,  but  couldn't." 

Eldon  was  at  a  loss  for  what  to  say  to  this.  Suddenly 
Batterson  was  clinging  to  his  arm,  and  sobbing  with  head 
bent  down  to  hide  his  weakness  from  the  passers-by. 

"Why,  Mr.  Batterson,"  Eldon  stammered,  "what's 
wrong?" 

"Tuell's  dead." 

"No!     My  God!" 

"He  never  came  out  of  the  ether.  They  were  too  late 
to  save  him.  The  appendix  had  burst  while  he  was 
working  last  night." 

Eldon,  remembering  that  uncanny  battle,  felt  the  gush 
of  brine  to  his  eyes.  He  hung  his  head  for  concealment, 
too. 

Batterson  raged  on:  "Remember  what  Hamlet  said: 
'They  say  he  made  a  good  end.'  Tuell  was  only  a  mum 
mer,  but  he  died  on  the  firing-line,  makin'  'em  laugh.  If 
he'd  been  a  soldier  trying  to  save  somebody  from  paying 
taxes  without  representation  or  trying  to  protect  some 
millionaire's  oil-wells,  or  a  fireman  trying  to  rescue  some 
body's  furniture — they'd  have  called  him  a  damned 
hero.  But  he  was  only  an  actor — he  only  tried  to  make 
people  happy.  He  was  a  comedian,  and  not  a  good 

96 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

comedian — just  a  hard  worker;  one  of  these  stage  soldiers 
trying  to  keep  the  theater  open. 

"He  did  the  best  he  knew  how.  The  critics  ripped  him 
open  and  made  him  funnier  than  he  could  make  himself. 
But  he  kept  right  on.  I  used  to  roast  him  worse  than 
they  did,  God  help  me!  But  he  never  laid  down  on  us. 
He  died  in  his  make-up.  They  didn't  take  his  grease 
paint  off  till  afterward.  They  didn't  know  how.  I  had 
to  do  it  for  him  when  I  got  there.  Poor  old  painted  face, 
with  the  comedian's  smile  branded  on  it!  That  was  his 
trade-mark.  He  was  only  an  actor." 

Eldon  noted  that  Batterson  had  led  him,  not  to  the 
hospital,  but  to  the  theater,  with  its  electric  signs,  its 
circus  lithographs,  its  gaudy  ballyhoo  of  advertisement. 

Batterson  groaned:  "Well,  here's  the  shop.  We've 
got  to  do  what  Tuell  did.  The  theater's  got  to  keep 
open.  It's  another  sell-out  to-night.  Somebody  has  to 
play  Tuell 's  part  to-night.  I  want  you  to." 

In  spite  of  the  horror  that  filled  his  heart  Eldon  felt 
a  shaft  of  hope  like  a  thrust  of  lightning  in  the  night. 
Then  the  dark  closed  in  again,  for  Batterson  went  on: 

"It's  only  for  to-night,  old  boy.  I've  wired  to  New 
York  and  a  good  man  '11  be  here  to-morrow.  But  there's 
to-night.  You've  got  to  go  on.  You  fell  down  the  other 
time,  and  I  guess  I  told  you  so,  but  you  didn't  have  a 
rehearsal.  I  can  coach  you  up  to-day.  I've  called  the 
other  people.  They  ought  to  be  here  now." 

And  so  they  were. 

On  the  gloomy  stage  before  the  empty  house  the  com 
pany  stood  about  in  somber  garb,  under  the  oppression 
of  Tuell's  death.  Batterson  walked  down  to  the  foot 
lights,  clapped  his  hands,  and  said: 

"Places,  please,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  for  poor  old 
Tuell's  first  scene.  Mr.  Eldon  will  play  the  part  to 
night." 

Those  who  were  not  on  at  the  entrance  drew  to  the  sides. 
The  others  moved  here  and  there  and  stood  at  their  posts. 

97 


CL.IPPED    WINGS 

Batterson  directed  with  an  unwonted  calm,  with  a  dismal 
patience. 

The  part  Eldon  held  in  his  hand  had  been  taken  from 
Tuell's  trunk.  The  dead  hands  seemed  to  cling  to  it 
with  grisly  jealousy.  The  laughter  of  Tuell  seemed  to 
haunt  the  place  like  the  echo  of  a  maniac's  voice.  Eldon 
could  not  give  any  color  to  the  lines.  He  could  barely 
utter  them.  The  company  gave  him  his  cues  with  equal 
lifelessness. 

Sheila  was  present  and  read  her  flippancies  in  a  voice 
of  terror — the  terror  of  youth  before  the  swoop  of  death. 
Mrs.  Vining  muttered  her  cynicisms  with  the  drear  bit 
terness  of  one  to  whom  this  familiar  sort  of  thing  had 
happened  once  more. 

When  the  detached  scenes  had  been  run  over  several 
times  Batterson  dismissed  Eldon  first  that  he  might  go 
and  study.  As  he  went  he  heard  Batterson  saying: 

"Help  him  out  to-night,  ladies  and  gentlemen.  Do  the 
best  you  can.  To-morrow  we'll  have  a  regular  man  here. 
And  now  about  poor  Tuell.  Some  of  the  comic-opera 
people  in  town  will  sing  at  his  funeral.  His  wife  is  coming 
out  to  get  him.  Mr.  Reben  telegraphed  to  pay  the  ex 
penses  of  taking  him  back.  I  guess  he  didn't  leave  the 
wife  anything  much — except  some  children.  We'd  better 
get  up  a  little  benefit,  I  guess — a  matinee,  probably. 
The  other  troupes  in  town  will  help,  of  course.  If  any 
of  you  know  any  good  little  one-act  plays,  let's  have  'em. 
I've  got  a  screaming  little  farce  we  might  throw  on.  I 
think  I  can  get  some  of  the  vaudeville  people  to  do  a  few 
comic  turns." 

That  night  Eldon  slipped  into  the  dead  man's  shoes — 
at  least  he  wore  the  riding-boots  and  the  hunting-coat 
and  carried  the  crop  that  Tuell  had  worn.  Tuell  had  had 
them  made  too  large — for  the  comic  effect  that  did  not 
come.  They  fitted  Eldon  fairly  well.  But  it  was  like 
acting  in  another  man's  shroud. 

98 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

He  was  without  ambition,  without  hope  of  personal 
profit.  He  was  merely  a  stop-gap.  He  was  too  com 
pletely  gloomy  even  to  feel  afraid  of  the  audience.  He 
was  only  a  journeyman  finishing  another  man's  job. 

His  memory  worked  like  a  machine,  so  independently  of 
his  mind  that  he  seemed  to  have  a  phonograph  in  his 
throat.  He  kept  wondering  at  the  little  explosions  of 
laughter  at  his  words. 

He  saw  the  surprise  in  Sheila's  eyes  as  he  brought  down 
the  house — with  so  different  a  laughter  now.  He  murmured 
to  her  in  sudden  dread,  "Are  they  guying  me  again?" 

"No,  no,"  she  answered.     "Go  on;  you're  splendid!" 

The  news  of  Tuell's  death  had  taken  little  space  in  the 
evening  papers.  The  audience,  as  a  whole,  was  oblivious 
of  it,  or  of  what  he  had  played.  There  was  none  of  the 
regret  on  the  other  side  of  the  footlights  that  solemnized  the 
stage.  The  play  had  been  established  as  a  successful  comedy. 
People  came  to  laugh,  and  laughed  with  confidence. 

But  the  pity  of  Tuell's  fate  ruined  any  joy  Eldon  might 
have  taken  in  the  success  he  was  winning.  He  played  the 
part  through  in  the  same  dull,  indifferent  tone.  When 
he  made  his  final  exit  he  laughed  as  he  had  heard  Tuell 
laugh,  with  uncanny  mimicry  as  if  a  ghost  inhabited 
him.  He  was  hardly  conscious  of  the  salvo  of  applause 
that  followed  him.  He  supposed  that  some  one  still  on 
the  stage  had  earned  it.  He  sighed  with  relief  ac  he 
reached  the  shelter  of  the  dark  wings.  Batterson,  who 
had  hovered  near  him,  ready  with  the  unnecessary  prompt 
book,  glared  at  him  in  amazement  and  growled: 

"Good  Lord!  Eldon,  who'd  have  ever  picked  you  for  a 
comedian?" 

Eldon  smiled  at  what  he  imagined  to  be  sarcasm,  and 
took  from  his  pocket  the  little  pamphlet  he  had  carried 
with  him  for  quick  reference.  He  offered  it  to  Batterson. 
Batterson  waved  it  back. 

"Keep  it,  my  boy.  When  the  other  fellow  gets  here 
from  New  York  he  can  play  your  old  part." 


CHAPTER  XV 

HP  HE  next  night  Eldon  reached  the  theater  in  a  new 
1  mood.  He  had  been  promoted.  He  still  felt  sorry 
for  poor  Tuell.  The  grief  of  the  wife  whom  he  had  met  at 
the  train  and  taken  to  the  undertaker's  shop  where  Tuell 
rested  had  torn  his  heart  as  with  claws.  He  had  told  her 
all  things  beautiful  of  Tuell.  He  had  wept  to  see  her  weep. 
He  wept  his  heart  clean  as  a  sheep's  heart. 

As  Villon  said,  "The  dead  go  quick."  Eldon  was 
ashamed  to  be  so  merciless,  but  in  spite  of  himself  am 
bition  blazed  up  in  him.  He  was  a  comedian.  Batterson 
had  told  him  so.  The  house  had  told  him  so.  Sheila  had 
murmured,  "You're  splendid." 

And  now  he  was  a  comedian  with  a  screamingly  funny 
r61e.  Now  he  could  build  it  up.  He  had  been  working 
on  it  half  unconsciously  all  night  and  all  day. 

The  second  night  he  marched  into  the  scene  with  the 
authority  of  one  who  is  about  to  be  very  funny.  In  his 
first  scenes  he  delivered  his  lines  with  enthusiasm,  with 
appreciation  of  their  humor.  He  took  pains  not  to  "walk 
into  his  laughs"  as  he  had  done  the  night  before,  when 
he  had  not  expected  any  laughs.  He  waited  for  his 
laughs.  He  was  amazed  to  note  that  they  did  not  come. 
His  pause  left  a  hole  in  the  action.  He  worked  harder, 
underlined  his  important  words,  cocked  his  head  as  one 
who  says,  "The  story  I  am  about  to  tell  you  is  the  funniest 
thing  you  ever  heard.  You'll  die  when  you  hear  it." 

It  was  the  scene  that  died.  A  new  form  of  stage-fright 
sickened  him.  Hope  perished.  He  was  not  a  comedian, 
after  all.  His  one  success  had  been  an  accident. 

100 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

When  the  first  curtain  fell  he  slunk  away  by  himself  to 
avoid  Batterson's  searching  eyes.  To  complete  his  shame 
he  saw  that  Batterson  was  talking  earnestly  with  the  new 
comer  from  New  York. 

Old  Mrs.  Vining  sauntered  his  way.  He  tried  to  escape, 
but  the  heavy  standard  of  a  bunch-light  cut  him  off.  She 
approached  him  and  began  in  that  acid  tone  of  hers : 

"Young  man,  there  are  two  things  that  are  important 
to  a  comedian.  One  is  to  get  a  laugh,  and  the  other  is  to 
nail  it.  You  got  your  laughs  last  night  and  you've  lost 
'em  to-night.  Do  you  know  why?" 

" If  I  only  did!     I'm  playing  twice  as  hard  to-night." 

"You  bet  you  are,  and  you're  hard  as  zinc.  You  keep 
telling  the  audience  how  funny  you're  going  to  be,  and  that 
finishes  you.  Now  you've  lived  long  enough  to  know  that 
there  are  few  jokes  in  the  world  so  funny  that  they  can 
stand  being  boosted  before  they're  told.  Play  your  part 
straight,  man.  You  can  fake  pathos  and  rub  it  in,  but 
of  all  things  always  play  comedy  straight. 

"And  another  thing,  don't  fidget!  One  of  the  best 
comedians  that  ever  walked  the  stage  told  me  once,  'I 
know  only  one  secret  for  getting  laughs,  and  that  is,  No 
body  must  move  when  the  laugh  comes.'  But  to-night 
you  never  waited  for  anybody  else  to  kill  your  laughs. 
You  butchered  'em  yourself  by  lolling  your  head  and 
making  fool  gestures.  Quit  it!  Now  you  go  on  in  the 
next  act  and  play  the  part  as  you  did  last  night.  Be 
gloomy  and  quiet  and  depressed.  That's  what  makes 
'em  laugh  out  there — the  sight  of  your  misery.  There's 
nothing  funny  to  them  in  your  being  so  damned  cheerful 
as  you  were  to-night." 

Eldon  said,  "Thank  you  very  much,  Mrs.  Vining." 
But  he  was  not  convinced  of  anything  except  his  fatal  and 
eternal  unfitness  to  be  an  actor.  He  walked  into  the 
second  act  carrying  his  old  burden  of  dejection;  he  rather 
moaned  than  delivered  his  lines.  And  the  people  laughed. 

The  cruelty  of  the  public  heart  angered  Eldon  and  he 

101 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

made  further  experiment  in  dolor.  Laughs  came  now 
that  he  had  not  secured  the  night  before.  The  others 
were  bigger  than  then.  He  threw  into  some  of  his  lines 
such  subcellar  misery  that  he  broke  up  Sheila.  When 
he  made  the  laughing  exit  he  did  not  even  chuckle,  he 
moaned.  And  the  result  was  a  tornado.  People  mopped 
their  eyes. 

Batterson  met  him  with  a  quizzical  smile:  "You  got 
'em  going  to-night  nearly  as  good  as  the  time  your  lantern 
went  out." 

That  was  higher  praise  than  it  sounded  at  first  hearing. 

When  Mrs.  Vining  made  her  exit  she  said,  "Aha !  What 
did  I  tell  you,  young  man?" 

When  Sheila  came  off  she  sought  him  out,  and  cried, 
"Oh,  you  were  wonderful,  simply  wonderful!" 

And  when  Batterson  growled  at  her:  "You  spoiled 
several  of  his  best  laughs  by  talking  through  'em.  You 
ought  to  know  better  than  that,"  Sheila  was  so  pleased 
for  Eldon's  sake  that  she  relished  the  rebuke. 

Mrs.  Vining  had  warned  him  to  nail  his  laughs.  At  the 
next  performance  he  tried  to  repeat  his  exact  effects. 
Some  of  them  he  forgot,  some  of  them  he  remembered. 
But  they  did  not  work  this  time.  Others  went  better 
than  ever.  Each  point  was  a  new  battle. 

And  so  it  was  with  every  repetition.  No  two  audiences 
were  alike.  Each  had  its  own  individuality.  He  began 
to  study  audiences  as  individuals.  The  first  part  of  his 
first  act  was  his  period  of  getting  acquainted.  Some 
houses  were  quick  and  some  slow,  some  noisily  demon 
strative,  some  quietly  satisfied.  It  took  all  his  powers  to 
play  his  part.  And  he  could  not  tire  of  it  because  every 
night  was  a  first  night  in  a  new  r61e. 

Success  made  another  man  of  him.  He  was  interested 
in  his  task.  He  was  winning  praise  for  it.  The  manage 
ment  voluntarily  raised  his  salary  a  little.  He  held  his 
head  a  trifle  higher. 

102 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Sheila  noted  the  change  at  once.  She  liked  him  the 
better  for  it.  She  repeated  her  invitation  to  tea.  He 
accepted  now,  and  appeared  in  some  new  clothes.  They 
were  vastly  becoming.  On  the  stage  he  played  a  middle- 
aged  henpecked  plebeian.  Off  the  stage  he  was  young 
and  handsome  and  thoroughbred. 

He  was  a  reader,  too,  and  Sheila,  like  most  actresses, 
was  an  omnivorous  browser.  They  talked  books.  She 
lent  him  one  of  hers.  He  cherished  it  as  if  it  were  a 
breviary.  They  argued  over  literature  and  life.  He 
ventured  to  contradict  her.  He  was  no  longer  a  big 
mastiff  at  heel.  He  was  forceful  and  stubborn.  These 
qualities  do  not  greatly  displease  a  woman  who  likes  a  man. 

Mrs.  Vining  was  amused  at  first  by  the  change  in  Sheila. 
Latterly  the  girl  was  constantly  quoting  "Mr.  Eldon." 
By  and  by  it  was  "As  Floyd  Eldon  says,"  and  one  day 
Mrs.  Vining  heard,  "Last  night  Floyd  was  telling  me." 
Then  Aunt  John  grew  alarmed,  for  she  did  not  want  Sheila 
to  be  in  love — not  for  a  long  while  yet,  and  never  with  an 
actor. 

And  Sheila  had  no  intention  of  falling  in  love  with  an 
actor.  But  this  did  not  prevent  her  from  being  the  best 
of  friends  with  one.  All  of  Eldon's  qualities  charmed 
Sheila  as  she  discovered  them.  She  had  leisure  for  the 
discovery.  There  were  no  rehearsals;  business  was  good 
at  the  theater;  Eldon  grew  better  and  better  in  his  per 
formance.  Sheila  kept  up  her  pace  and  enlarged  her  fol 
lowing.  They  dwelt  in  an  atmosphere  of  contentment. 
But  as  her  personal  public  increased  and  as  the  demands 
on  her  spirits  and  her  time  increased  she  began  to  take 
more  pleasure  in  the  company  of  Eldon  and  to  like  him 
best  alone.  She  began  to  break  old  engagements,  or  fulfil 
them  briefly,  and  to  refuse  new  invitations. 

Mrs.  Vining  was  not  able  to  be  about  for  a  while.  Her 
neuralgia  was  revived  by  the  knife-winds  of  Chicago. 
But  Sheila  and  Eldon  found  them  highly  stimulating. 
He  joined  her  in  her  constitutionals. 

103 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Chicago  was  large  enough  to  give  them  a  kind  of  seclu 
sion  by  multitude,  the  solitude  of  a  great  forest.  Among 
Chicago's  myriads  the  little  "Friend  in  Need"  company 
was  lost  to  view.  It  was  possible  to  go  about  with 
Eldon  and  never  meet  a  fellow-trooper;  to  walk  miles 
with  him  along  the  Lake  front,  or  through  Lincoln  Park, 
to  sidle  past  the  pictures  in  the  Art  Institute  or  the  Field 
Museum,  and  rest  upon  the  benches  in  galleries  where 
the  dumb  beauty  on  the  walls  warmed  the  soul  to  sen 
sitiveness. 

And  when  they  were  not  alone  their  hearts  seemed  to 
commune  without  exchange  of  word  or  glance.  He  told 
her  first  how  wonderful  an  artist  she  was,  and  by  and  by 
he  was  crediting  her  art  to  her  wonderful  "personality." 
She  told  him  that  he  had  "personality,"  too,  lots  of  it, 
and  charming.  She  told  him  that  the  stage  needed  men  of 
birth  and  breeding  and  higher  education,  especially 
when  these  were  combined  with  such — such — she  could 
hardly  say  beauty — so  she  fell  back  again  on  that  useful 
term — "personality." 

They  never  tired  of  discussing  the  technic  of  their 
trade  and  its  emotional  grandeurs.  He  told  her  that  his 
main  ambition  was  to  see  her  achieve  the  heights  God 
meant  her  for;  he  only  wished  that  he  might  trudge  on 
after  her,  in  her  wake.  She  told  him  that  he  had  far 
greater  gifts  than  she  had,  and  that  his  future  was  bound 
less. 

Finally  she  convinced  him  that  she  was  convinced  of 
this,  and  over  a  tea-table  in  the  Auditorium  Hotel  he 
murmured — and  trembled  with  the  terrific  audacity  of  it 
as  he  murmured : 

"If  only  we  could  always  play  together — twin  stars." 

She  was  shocked  as  if  she  had  touched  a  live  wire  of 
frightful  beatitude.  And  her  lips  shivered  as  she  mum 
bled,  "Would  you  like  that?" 

He  could  only  sigh  enormously.  And  his  eyes  were 
full  of  devout  longing  as  he  whispered,  "Let's!" 

104 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

They  burst  into  laughter  like  children  planning  some 
tremendous  game.  And  then  Mrs.  Vining  had  to  walk 
into  their  cloud-Eden  and  dissolve  it  into  a  plain  table 
at  which  she  seated  herself. 

Mrs.  Vining  was  thinking  "Aha!"  as  she  crossed  the 
room  to  their  table.  "It's  high  time  I  was  getting  well. 
Affairs  have  been  progressing  since  I  began  to  nurse  my 
neuralgia." 

She  resolved  to  stick  around,  like  the  "  demon  chaperon  " 
of  Fontaine  Fox's  comic  pictures.  At  all  costs  she  must 
rescue  Sheila  from  the  wiles  of  this  good-looking  young 
man.  For  her  ward  to  lose  her  head  and  find  her  heart 
in  an  affair  with  an  actor  would  be  a  disaster  indeed;  the 
very  disaster  that  Sheila's  mother  had  warned  her  against. 

Of  course  Sheila's  mother  had  married  an  actor  and 
been  as  happy  as  a  woman  had  a  right  to  expect  to  be 
with  any  man.  And  of  course  Mrs.  Vining's  own  dear 
dead  John  Vining  had  been  the  most  lovable  of  rascals. 
But  such  bits  of  luck  could  not  keep  on  recurring  in  the 
same  family. 

And  Mr.  Reben  did  not  believe  in  marriage  for  actors, 
either.  He  had  many  reasons  far  from  romantic.  The 
public  did  not  like  its  innocent  heroines  to  be  wives. 
The  prima  donna's  husband  is  a  proverb  of  trouble- 
making.  Separated,  the  couple  pine;  united,  they  quar 
rel  with  other  members  of  the  company  or  with  each 
other.  Children  arrive  contrary  to  bookings  and  play 
havoc  with  youth  and  vivacity,  changing  the  frivolous 
Juliet  into  a  Nurse  or  a  Roman  Matron. 

Reben  would  have  been  infuriated  to  learn  that  Sheila 
Kemble,  his  Sheila  of  the  golden  future,  was  dallying  on 
the  brink  of  an  infatuation  for  an  infatuated  minor  member 
of  one  of  his  companies.  A  flirtation,  even,  was  too  dan 
gerous  to  permit.  He  would  have  dismissed  Eldon  with 
out  a  moment's  pity  if  he  had  known  what  none  of  the 
company  had  yet  suspected.  Unwittingly  he  accom- 
8  105 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

plished  the  effect  he  would  have  sought  if  he  had  been 
aware. 

Reben  ran  out  to  Chicago  ostensibly,  according  to  his 
custom,  to  inspect  the  troupe  in  the  last  fortnight  of  its 
run  there.  He  invited  Sheila  to  supper  with  Mrs.  Vining. 
He  criticized  Sheila  severely  and  praised  Miss  Griffen. 
Later,  as  if  quite  casually,  he  spoke  to  Mrs.  Vining  of  a 
new  play  he  had  found  abroad.  It  was  a  man  star's  play. 
"I  bought  it  for  Tom  Brereton,"  he  said,  "but  the  leadin' 
woman's  role  is  rather  interestin'." 

He  described  one  of  her  scenes  and  noted  that  Sheila 
was  instantly  excited.  It  was  one  of  those  craftsmanly 
achievements  the  English  dramatists  arrive  at  oftener 
than  ours,  and  it  had  made  the  instant  fame  of  the  actress 
who  played  it  in  London.  Having  dropped  this  golden 
apple  before  Atalanta,  he  changed  the  subject  carelessly. 

Sheila  turned  back  to  the  apple: 

"Tell  me  more  about  the  play,  please!" 

Reben  told  her  more,  permitted  her  to  coax  him  to  tell 
it  all.  He  yawned  so  crudely  that  she  would  have  no 
ticed  his  wiles  if  she  had  been  able  to  think  of  anything 
but  that  role;  for  an  actress  thrills  at  the  thought  of 
putting  on  one  of  these  costumes  of  the  soul  as  quickly  as 
an  average  woman  grows  incandescent  before  a  new  gown. 

Sheila  clasped  her  hands  and  shook  her  head  like  a 
beggar  outside  a  restaurant  window:  "Oh,  but  I  envy 
the  woman  who  plays  that  part !  Who  is  she?" 

"Parton,  I  suppose,"  Reben  yawned.  "But  she's 
fallen  off  lately.  Gone  and  got  herself  in  love — and  with 
a  fool  actor,  of  all  people!  The  idiot!  I've  a  notion  to 
chuck  her.  After  all  the  money  and  publicity  I've 
wasted  on  her,  to  fall  for  a  dub  like  that!" 

Sheila  did  not  dare  plead  for  the  part.  But  her  eyes 
prayed;  her  very  attitude  implored  it. 

Reben  laughed:  "In  case  anything  awful  happened  to 
Parton — like  sudden  death  or  matrimony — I  don't  sup 
pose  the  r61e  would  interest  you?" 

106 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"I'd  give  ten  years  off  my  life  to  play  that  part." 

"Would  you,  now  ?"  Reben  laughed.  "You  don't  mean 
it.  Ten  years  off  your  life,  eh?  Would  you  give  ten 
dollars  off  your  salary?"  He  chuckled  at  his  shrewdness. 

But  she  answered,  solemnly,  "I'd  play  it  for  nothing." 

"Well,  well!"  said  Reben.  "That  would  be  a  savin'!" 
He  always  would  have  his  little  joke.  Then  he  said: 
"But  jokin'  aside,  of  course  I  couldn't  afford  to  let  you 
work  for  nothin'.  Fact  is,  if  the  play  was  a  success  I 
could  afford  to  pay  you  a  little  better  than  you're  gettin' 
now.  What  are  you  gettin'  now?" 

"Seventy-five,"  said  Sheila. 

"Is  that  all!"  said  Reben.  "Well,  well,  I  don't  have 
to  be  as  stingy  as  that.  But  there's  one  thing  I  can't 
afford  to  do  and  that's  to  work  for  an  actor — or  actress — 
who  quits  me  as  soon  as  I  make  him — or  her." 

"I'd  never  quit  you  if  you  gave  me  chances  like  that," 
Sheila  sighed,  hopelessly. 

"So  they  all  tell  me,"  said  Reben.  "Then  they  chuck 
me  for  the  management  of  Cupid  &  Co.  Would  you  be 
willin'  to  sign  a  five  years'  contract  with  me,  young  lady?" 

"In  a  minute!" 

"Well,  well!     I'll  see  what  can  be  done.     Good  night!" 

He  left  her  to  fret  herself  to  an  edge  with  the  insomnia 
of  frantic  ambition.  The  next  day  he  sent  her  a  contract 
to  look  over. 

"Aha!"  said  Sheila  to  Mrs.  Vining.  "That's  his  little 
game.  He  wanted  me  all  the  time.  Why  couldn't  he 
have  said  so?  I'll  make  him  pay  for  being  so  clever." 

She  sent  the  contract  back  with  emendations. 

He  emended  her  emendations  and  returned  it  to  her. 

She  emended  further  and  wrote  in  the  margin,  "Oh, 
Mr.  Reben!"  and,  "Greedy,  greedy!" 

He  rather  enjoyed  the  duel  with  the  little  haggler.  He 
belonged  to  the  race  that  best  manages  to  combine  really 
good  art  with  really  good  business  and  really  good 
generosity. 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

When  at  last  he  had  bargained  Sheila  to  the  wall  he 
made  her  a  present  of  better  terms  than  she  had  accepted — 
as  if  he  were  tossing  her  a  handsome  diamond. 

Sheila  embraced  him  and  called  him  an  angel.  He 
belonged,  indeed,  to  the  same  race  as  the  only  original 
angels. 

She  signed  the  contract  with  exclamations  of  gratitude. 
With  his  copy  in  his  pocket  he  put  out  both  hands  and 
wished  her  ail  the  glory  he  planned  for  her.  Then  he 
told  her  to  get  ready  to  leave  within  a  week  for  New  York 
and  rehearsals. 

He  had  brought  to  Chicago  a  young  woman  stage- 
named  Dulcie  Ormerod  to  replace  her.  He  wanted  Dulcie 
to  play  the  part  at  least  a  week  so  that  the  company 
could  be  advertised  as  "exactly  the  same  that  appeared  in 
Chicago." 

When  he  had  gone  Sheila  fell  from  the  clouds — at  least 
she  struck  a  hole  in  the  air  and  sank  suddenly  nearer  to 
the  earth.  She  cried,  "Oh,  Aunt  John,  I  forgot  to  ask 
if  he  wanted  you  in  the  new  play!" 

"  No,  he  doesn't,  dearie.  He  told  me  how  sorry  he  was 
that  there  was  no  part  for  me  while  you  were  signing  the 
contract." 

"Oh,  I'm  so  sorry!     I  won't  leave  you!" 

"Of  course  you  will,  my  child.  You  can't  go  on  for 
ever  chained  to  my  old  slow  heels.  Besides,  I'm  too  tired 
to  learn  a  new  part  this  season.  I'll  jog  on  out  to  the 
Coast  with  this  company.  I  think  California  will  be  good 
for  me." 

A  little  later  Sheila  remembered  Floyd  Eldon.  She 
gasped  as  if  she  had  been  stabbed. 

"Why,  what's  wrong  now,  honey?"  cried  Mrs.  Vining. 

"I  was  just  thinking —    Oh,  nothing!" 

Sheila  was  dismayed  at  the  idea  of  leaving  Eldon, 
leaving  him  all  by  himself — no,  not  by  himself,  for  that 
Dulcie  creature  would  replace  her  in  the  company,  and 

1 08 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

perhaps — no  doubt — in  his  lonely  heart.  Sheila  had 
grown  ever  so  fond  of  Eldon,  but  she  could  not  expect 
any  man,  least  of  all  so  handsome,  so  big-hearted  a  man, 
to  resist  the  wiles  of  a  cat,  or,  worse,  a  kitten,  who  would 
select  such  a  name  as  "Dulcie." 

An  inspiration  gave  Sheila  sudden  cheer.  She  would 
ask  dear  Mr.  Reben  to  give  Eldon  a  chance  in  the  new 
company.  It  would  be  far  better  for  Floyd  to  "create" 
something  than  to  continue  hammering  at  his  present 
second-hand  role.  He  might  have  to  take  a  smallish 
part,  but  they  would  be  in  each  other's  neighborhood, 
and  perhaps  the  star  might  fall  ill.  Eldon  would  step 
in;  he  would  make  an  enormous  sensation ;  and  then  and 
thus  in  a  few  short  months  they  would  have  accomplished 
their  dream — they  would  be  revolving  as  twin  stars  in 
the  high  sky  together. 

She  called  up  Reben  at  the  theater;  he  had  gone  to  the 
hotel.  At  the  hotel,  he  had  left  for  the  station.  At  the 
station,  he  had  taken  the  train.  Well,  she  would  write 
to  him  or,  better  yet,  see  him  in  person  and  arrange  it  the 
minute  she  reached  New  York. 

That  night  she  took  her  contract  to  the  theater  in  her 
hand-bag.  She  must  tell  Floyd  about  it. 

He  was  loitering  outside  when  she  reached  the  stage 
door.  Her  face  was  agleam  with  joy  as  she  beckoned  him 
under  a  light  in  the  corridor.  His  face  was  agleam,  too, 
as  he  hurried  forward.  Before  she  could  whisk  out  her 
contract  he  brandished  before  her  one  of  his  own.  Before 
she  could  say,  "See  what  I  have!"  he  was  murmuring: 
"Sheila!  Sheila!  What  do  you  suppose?  Reben — the 
great  Reben  likes  my  work.  He  said  he  thought  I  was 
worth  keeping,  but  I  ought  to  be  playing  the  juvenile  lead 
instead  of  a  second  old  man.  He's  going  to  shift  Eric 
Folwell  to  a  new  production  East,  and  he  offered  me  his 
place!  Think  of  it!  Of  course  I  grabbed  it.  I'm  to 
replace  Folwell  as  soon  as  I  can  get  up  in  the  part.  Would 
you  believe  it — Reben  gave  me  a  contract  for  three  years. 

109 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

He's  boosted  me  to  fifty  a  week  already.  I'm  to  play  this 
part  all  season  through  to  the  Coast.  And  next  season 
he'll  give  me  a  better  part  in  something  else — and  at  a 
better  salary. 

"I  wanted  to  telephone  you  about  it,  but  I  was  afraid 
to  mention  it  to  you  for  fear  something  might  prevent  him 
from  signing.  But  he  did! — just  before  he  took  the  train. 
See,  there's  his  own  great  name!  After  next  week  I'm 
to  be  your  lover  in  the  play  as  well  as  in  reality.  Our 
dream  is  coming  true  already,  isn't  it — "  He  hesitated 
before  the  absolute  word,  then,  having  made  the  plunge, 
went  on  and  whispered,  "Sheila  mine!" 

Sheila  stared  at  him,  at  the  love  and  triumph  in  his 
eyes;  and  suddenly  her  cake  was  dough.  Her  mouth 
twisted  like  a  child's  when  the  rain  begins  on  a  holiday. 
She  turned  her  head  away  and  passed  the  side  of  her 
hand  childishly  across  her  clenched  eyes,  whence  the 
tears  came  thronging.  She  half  murmured,  half  wept: 

"I'm  not  your  Sheila.  I'm  that  hateful  old  Reben's 
slave.  And  I  don't  go  any  further  with  you.  Miss — 
Dulcie  Somebody-or-other  is  to  have  my  part.  She's 
prettier  than  I  am.  And  I've  got  to  go  to  New  York 
next  week  to  begin  rehearsals  of — a  horrid  old  B-british 
success." 

The  voice  of  the  call-boy  warning  them  of  the  half- 
hour  sent  them  scurrying  to  their  cells  with  their  plight 
unsolved.  They  had  a  few  chances  to  exchange  regrets 
during  the  performance,  but  other  members  of  the  com 
pany  who  had  heard  of  the  good  luck  of  both  of  them  kept 
breaking  in  with  felicitations  that  sounded  like  irony. 
They  were  so  desperate  for  talk  that  Eldon  waited  for 
Sheila  in  the  alley  and  walked  to  her  hotel  with  her. 
Mrs.  Vining  went  along,  very  much  along.  They  had  to 
accept  her  presence;  she  would  not  be  ignored.  She  put 
in  sarcastic  allusions  to  the  uselessness  of  good  luck  in 
this  world.  In  her  day  actors  and  actresses  would  have 

no 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

been  dancing  along  the  streets  over  such  double  fortune. 
As  to  their  separation,  it  would  be  a  good  test  of  their 
alleged  affection.  If  it  was  serious  it  would  outlast  the 
test;  if  not,  it  was  a  good  time  to  learn  how  unimportant 
the  whole  thing  was. 

She  regarded  the  elegies  of  young  love  with  all  the 
skepticism  of  the  old  who  have  seen  so  much  of  it,  heard 
so  much  repetition  of  such  words  as  "undying"  and  "for 
ever,"  and  have  seen  the  "undying"  dying  all  about  like 
autumn  leaves,  and  few  of  the  "forevers"  lasting  a  year. 

Sheila  accepted  Eldon's  invitation  to  have  a  bite  of 
supper  in  the  grill-room.  Mrs.  Vining  was  in  a  grill 
room  mood  and  invited  herself  along.  Other  members  of 
the  troupe  appeared  and  visited  the  funeral  table  with 
words  of  envy. 

In  the  spaces  between  these  interruptions  Sheila  ex 
plained  her  plan  to  ask  Reben  to  give  Eldon  a  chance 
with  the  new  company. 

Mrs.  Vining  sniffed:  "Sheila,  you  ought  to  have  sense 
enough  to  know  that  the  minute  you  mentioned  this 
young  man's  name  Reben  would  send  him  to  Australia — 
or  fire  him." 

"Fire  him?"  said  Sheila.  "He  has  a  three  years'  con 
tract." 

"Yes,  with  a  two  weeks'  clause  in  it,  I'll  bet." 

They  fetched  the  contract  out  and  looked  it  over  again. 
There  was  the  iniquitous  clause,  seated  like  a  toad  over 
looked  among  the  flowers,  and  now  it  was  impossible  to 
see  the  flowers  for  the  toad. 

"Oh,  you  ought  to  have  changed  that,"  said  Sheila. 
"It's  different  in  mine." 

"I  didn't  know,"  said  Eldon,  "and  I  shouldn't  have 
dared  to  argue  with  Reben.  I  was  afraid  he  might  change 
his  mind.  But  I  could  resign  and  come  East  and  get  a 
job  with  another  manager." 

Mrs.  Vining  poured  on  more  vinegar:  "You  can't  re 
sign.  That  two  weeks'  notice  works  only  one  way. 

in 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

And  if  you  break  with  Reben  you'll  have  a  fine  chance 
getting  in  with  any  other  manager!  Besides,  why  let 
your — well,  call  it  '  love '  if  you  want  to — why  let  it  make 
fools  of  you  both?  Mr.  Eldon  has  had  a  great  compliment 
from  the  best  manager  in  the  country,  and  a  raise  of 
salary,  and  a  promise  of  his  interest.  Are  you  thinking 
of  slapping  him  in  the  face  and  kicking  your  own  feet 
out  from  under  yourself  just  because  this  foolish  little 
girl  is  going  along  about  her  business? 

"And  another  thing,  Mr.  Floyd  Eldon,  if  you  love  this 
girl  as  much  as  you  say  you're  taking  a  pretty  way  to 
prove  it.  Do  you  want  to  ruin  her  career  just  as  it's 
beginning,  drag  this  rising  star  back  to  the  drudgery  of 
being  the  wife  of  a  fifty-dollar-a-week  actor?  Oh,  you'll 
do  better.  You're  the  type  that  matine'e  girls  make  a  pet 
of.  You'll  have  draught,  too,  as  soon  as  you  learn  a  little 
more  about  your  business.  But  it  wouldn't  help  you 
any  just  now  to  be  known  as  an  old  married  man.  You 
mind  your  business  and  let  her  mind  hers. 

"You  think  you're  Romeo  and  Juliet  in  modern  cos 
tume,  I  suppose.  Well,  look  what  a  mess  they  made  of 
it.  You  are  two  fine  young  things  and  I  love  you  both, 
but  you  mustn't  try  to  prove  your  devotion  to  each  other 
by  committing  suicide  together." 

Eldon's  thoughts  were  dark  and  bitter.  His  own  career 
meant  nothing  to  him  at  the  moment.  His  love  of  Sheila 
was  all-important  to  him,  and  her  career  was,  above  all, 
important.  He  said:  "I  certainly  won't  do  anything  to 
hurt  Sheila's  career.  That's  my  religion — her  career." 

He  poured  into  her  eyes  all  the  idolatry  a  man  can  feel 
for  a  woman.  He  had  a  curious  feeling  that  he  read  in  her 
eyes  a  faint  fleck  of  disappointment.  His  sacrifice  was 
perfect  and  complete,  but  he  felt  an  odious  little  suspicion 
that  it  was  not  absolutely  welcome. 

Perhaps  he  guessed  right.  Sheila  was  hastening  to  that 
point  in  womanhood  where  the  chief  demand  of  her  soul  is 
not  that  her  lover  should  exalt  her  on  a  pedestal  and  wor- 

112 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

ship  her,  but  should  tear  her  thence  and  love  her.  She 
did  not  suspect  this  yet  herself.  All  she  knew  was  that 
she  was  dissatisfied  with  her  triumph.  She  bade  Eldon  a 
ghostly  farewell  at  the  hotel  elevator  and  went  up  to  her 
room,  while  he  turned  away  to  his  dingy  boarding-house. 
He  had  not  yet  bettered  his  lodgings;  he  was  trying  to 
save  his  pennies  against  the  future  need  of  a  married  man. 
When  Sheila  had  made  ready  for  bed  she  put  out  the 
lights  and  leaned  across  the  sill  and  stared  across  the  dark 
boundless  prairie  of  the  starlit  Lake.  It  had  an  oceanic 
vastitude  and  loneliness.  It  was  as  blank  as  her  own 
future. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  last  days  of  Sheila's  presence  with  the  company 
were  full  of  annoyances.  There  was  little  oppor 
tunity  for  communion  with  Floyd.  Mrs.  Vining  was  in 
vincibly  tenacious.  All  day  long,  too,  Floyd  was  rehears 
ing  his  new  r61e.  This  proved  intensely  difficult  to  him. 
With  a  heart  full  of  devotion  to  Sheila,  it  was  worse  than 
awkward  to  be  making  love  to  the  parvenue  who  took  her 
place,  mimicked  her  intonations,  made  the  same  steps  and 
gestures,  said  the  same  words,  and  yet  was  so  radically 
different. 

She  was  a  forward  thing — Miss  Dulcie  Ormerod.  She 
patronized  Eldon  and  tried  to  flirt  with  him  at  the  same 
time.  She  forced  conversation  on  him  when  he  was 
morose.  She  happened  to  meet  him  with  extraordinary 
coincidence  when  he  was  outside  the  theater.  And  almost 
every  time  the  two  of  them  happened  to  be  together 
they  happened  to  meet  Sheila. 

Dulcie  was  one  of  those  women  who  seem  unable  to 
address  one  without  pawing  or  clinging — as  if  the  arms 
were  telephone  cables,  and  there  were  no  communicating 
without  contact. 

Sheila  was  of  the  wireless  type.  A  touch  from  her  was 
as  important  as  a  caress.  To  put  a  hand  familiarly  or 
carelessly  on  her  arm  was  not  to  be  thought  of,  at  least 
by  Eldon.  Others  who  attempted  it  found  that  she 
flinched  aside  or  moved  to  a  distance  almost  uncon 
sciously.  She  kept  herself  precious  in  every  way. 

Eldon  loathed  the  touch  of  Dulcie' s  claws,  especially 
as  he  could  not  seem  to  convince  Sheila  that  he  did  not 

114 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

enjoy  her  incessant  contiguity.  And  the  prehensive  Dul- 
cie  was  calling  him  "Floyd"  before  the  third  rehearsal. 

Batterson  was  calling  him  all  sorts  of  names  of  the 
familiarity  that  implies  contempt,  for  Eldon  was  not  re 
hearsing  well.  He  realized  the  confusing  inconveniences 
that  love  can  weave  into  the  actor's  trade.  If  it  had  not 
been  for  Sheila  he  could  have  made  a  straight  matter  of 
art  or  business  out  of  the  love-scenes  with  Dulcie,  or  he 
could  have  thrown  the  hungry  thing  an  occasional  kind 
word  to  keep  her  quiet,  or  have  fallen  temporarily  in  love 
with  her,  for  Dulcie  was  one  of  those  actresses  who  insist 
that  they  "must  feel  a  part  to  play  it."  She  was  forever 
alluding  to  one  of  her  roles  in  which  "she  knew  she  was 
great  because  she  wept  real  tears  in  it." 

Sheila  belonged  to  the  other  school.  Her  father  would 
say  of  a  scene,  "  I  knew  I  was  great  in  that  because  I  could 
guy  it."  For  then  he  was  like  the  juggler  who  can  chat 
with  the  audience  without  dropping  a  prop — a  Cyrano  who 
can  fight  for  his  life  and  compose  a  poem  at  the  same 
time. 

Sheila  felt  the  emotions  of  her  rdle  when  she  first  took 
it  up,  but  she  conquered  them  as  soon  as  she  could  by 
studying  and  registering  their  manifestations,  so  that 
her  resources  were  like  an  instrument  to  play  on.  There 
after  her  emotions  were  those  of  the  concert  violinist  who 
plays  upon  his  audience  as  well  as  his  instrument. 

Sheila  watched  a  few  rehearsals.  She  hated  the  ex 
aggerated  sentimentalisms  of  Dulcie  and  her  splay 
footed  comedy.  Dulcie  underscored  every  important 
word  like  a  school-girl  writing  a  letter.  Sheila  credited 
the  audience  with  a  sense  of  humor  and  kept  its  intelli 
gence  alert.  Sheila  made  no  bones  of  criticizing  her  suc 
cessor.  But  when  Eldon  agreed  with  her,  she  was  not 
convinced.  She  was  far  more  jealous  of  him  than  she 
was  of  her  role.  But  Eldon  was  not  wise  enough  to  take 
comfort  from  these  proofs  of  her  affection.  They  nar 
rowly  escaped  quarreling  during  their  last  few  meetings. 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

When  Sheila  went  away  Eldon  could  not  even  go  to  the 
train  with  her.  Batterson  held  him  to  rehearsal. 

Sheila  said,  "Don't  worry;  Mr.  Folwell  will  take  care 
of  me."  She  could  hardly  have  been  ignorant  of  the 
torment  this  meant  to  Eldon,  but  her  heart  was  aching, 
too,  because  he  permitted  a  little  thing  like  his  business 
to  keep  him  from  paving  the  last  tributes  of  tenderness. 

Folwell  was  one  of  those  affable  leading  men  who  always 
proffer  their  leading  women  as  much  gallantry  as  they 
care  to  accept.  He  had  been  a  devoted  suitor  to  Zelma 
Griffen  and  had  graciously  pretended  to  suffer  agonies  of 
jealousy  over  her  humming-bird  flirtations.  He  had  done 
the  same  with  the  women  stars  of  his  last  three  engage 
ments.  He  was  Scotch,  and  had  a  gift  of  sad-eyed  sin 
cerity  for  the  moment,  and  a  vocabulary  of  irresistible 
little  pet  names,  and  a  grim  earnestness  about  whatever 
interested  him  at  the  time.  His  real  name  was,  curi 
ously,  Robert  Burns.  He  had  changed  it  lest  he  be  sus 
pected  of  stealing  it,  or  of  advertising  a  much-advertised 
tobacco. 

Eldon  imagined  that  Folwell  would  begin  to  languish 
over  Sheila  the  moment  the  train  started,  and  was  tempted 
to  bash  in  his  head  so  that  he  would  be  incapable  of 
making  love  at  all.  He  had  won  into  Sheila's  good 
graces  by  knocking  an  anonymous  student  over  the  foot 
lights.  If  he  sent  a  pseudonymous  actor  the  same  way 
he  might  clinch  his  success  with  her.  He  little  knew 
that  the  blow  he  had  struck  Bret  Winfield  had  not  yet 
ceased  to  sting  that  youth,  and  that  Winfield  was  still  re 
peating  his  vow  to  square  himself  with  Eldon  and  with 
Sheila — in  very  different  ways. 

But  Eldon  let  Folwell  escape  without  planting  his  fists 
on  him.  And  he  let  Sheila  escape  without  imprinting  the 
seal  of  his  kiss  upon  her.  He  had  never  laid  lip  to  her 
cheek.  And  now  they  were  divorced,  without  being 
betrothed. 

If  he  had  known  how  tenderly  Sheila's  thoughts  flew 

1x6 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

back  to  him,  if  he  had  known  that  she  locked  herself  in  her 
state-room  and  wept  and  never  once  saw  Folwell  on  the 
train,  he  would  have  been  happier  and  sadder  both,  with 
the  incurable  perversity  of  a  forlorn  lover.  If  he  could 
have  seen  her  very  soul  of  souls  he  would  have  seen  what 
she  dared  not  admit  to  herself,  that  she  was  a  little  dis 
appointed  in  him  because  he  let  her  go.  She  doubted 
the  greatness  of  his  love  of  her  because  he  loved  the 
artist  she  was  so  well.  Sheila  was  more  jealous  of  her 
actress  self  than  of  Dulcie  Ormerod. 

It  was  not  many  days  before  Eldon,  too,  turned  his 
back  on  Chicago,  but  facing  westerly.  The  city  was 
dear  to  him:  he  had  passed  through  a  whole  lifetime  of 
stages  there,  from  crushing  failure  to  success  in  a  leading 
rdle,  and  from  loneliness  to  reciprocated  love  and  widower- 
hood. 

Mrs.  Vining  tried  to  console  him  when  he  turned  to  her 
as  at  least  a  relative  of  Sheila's.  She  made  as  much  as 
she  could  of  his  performance  as  Folwell's  successor.  It 
was  a  creditable  and  a  promising  beginning,  though  it 
offended  her  experienced  standards  in  countless  ways. 
But  she  flattered  him  with  honeyed  words,  and  she  tried 
to  wear  away  his  love  for  Sheila. 

She  had  seen  so  many  nice  young  fellows  and  dear, 
sweet  girls  stretched  on  the  rack  of  these  situations — 
wrenched  by  the  wheels  of  separation  and  all  the  sus 
picions  that  jealousy  can  imagine  from  opportunity.  In 
all  mercy  she  wished  this  couple  well  cured  of  the  in 
flammation.  She  did  her  part  to  allay  it  with  counter- 
irritants  and  caustics.  She  wrote  Sheila  that  Eldon  was 
getting  along  famously  with  his  rdle — and  with  Dulcie, 
who  was  "a  dear  little  thing  and  winning  excellent  press 
notices."  She  told  Eldon  that  Sheila  was  in  love  with 
her  new  play,  and  that  Tom  Brereton  was  turning  her 
head  with  his  compliments.  Folwell,  who  had  the  second 
male  rdle  in  the  new  play,  was  also  very  attentive,  she 
said.  And  Sheila  was  going  out  a  good  deal  in  New  York 

117 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

— dancing  her  feet  off  nearly  every  night.  The  author  of 
the  play  was  a  third  rival  for  her  favor,  in  Mrs.  Vining's 
chronicles. 

Everything  collaborated  to  Eldon's  torture.  The 
"Friend  in  Need"  company  was  moving  West  in  long 
jumps.  Sheila's  letters  had  farther  and  farther  to  go. 
A  sudden  change  of  booking  threw  them  off  the  track 
and  two  weeks  passed  without  a  line.  He  sent  her  day 
letters  and  night  letters  as  affectionate  in  tone  as  he 
had  the  face  to  submit  to  the  telegraph  operators.  Her 
answers  did  not  satisfy  him.  They  were  never  so  prompt 
as  his  calculations  and  he  did  not  credit  her  with  restraint 
before  the  cold-eyed  telegraphers. 

She  was  far  busier,  too,  than  he  imagined.  Costumes 
were  to  be  ordered  and  fitted;  the  new  lines  to  be  learned; 
photographs  to  be  posed  for;  interviews  to  be  given. 
Reben  was  grooming  her  for  a  star  already,  without  giv 
ing  her  an  inkling  of  his  schemes.  As  for  flirting  with 
Brereton  or  Folwell,  she  was  as  far  as  possible  from  the 
thought  of  such  a  leisurely  occupation.  She  was  having 
battles  with  them,  and  still  bitterer  conflicts  with  the 
author. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

IN  the  eyes  of  the  playwright  Sir  Ralph  Incledon,  as  in 
the  eyes  of  the  early  Spaniards,  the  Americans  were 
savages  with  unlimited  gold  to  exchange  for  glass  beads. 
He  had  a  noble  contempt  for  all  of  us  except  our  dollars, 
and  he  was  almost  ashamed  to  take  those;  their  very 
nomenclature  was  vulgar  and  the  decimal  system  was 
French. 

The  London  success  of  his  piece  following  upon  his 
arrival  at  knighthood  had  completely  spoiled  him. 
Other  great  writers  and  actors  who  had  received  the 
accolade  had  been  rendered  a  little  meeker  and  more 
knightly  as  knights,  but  Incledon  became  almost  unen- 
durably  offensive,  even  to  his  fellows  in  London.  The 
decent  English  in  New  York  who  had  to  meet  him  abom 
inated  him  as  civilized  Americans  abroad  abominate  the 
noisy  specimens  of  Yankee  insolence  who  go  twanging 
their  illiterate  contempt  through  the  palaces  and  gal 
leries  and  restaurants  of  Europe. 

Sir  Ralph  was  greatly  distressed  with  the  company 
Reben  had  proudly  mustered  for  him.  Tom  Brereton  was 
English  born  and  bred,  but  Sir  Ralph  accused  him  of  "an 
extraord'n'r'ly  atrowcious  Amayric'n  acs'nt."  Americans 
who  had  seen  the  London  performance  had  been  amazed 
not  only  at  the  success  of  Miss  Berkshire,  but  at  her  very 
tolerance  on  the  stage;  they  said  she  looked  like  a  giraffe 
and  talked  like  a  cow.  But  she  pleased  her  own  public 
somehow.  When  Sir  Ralph  saw  Sheila  he  was  not  im 
pressed;  he  said  that  she  was  "even  wahss"  than  Brereton 
and  under  "absolutely  neigh-o  sec'mst'nces  could  he  per- 

119 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

mit  hah  to  deviate  from  the  p'fawm'nce  of  d'yah  aold 
Bahkshah." 

Sheila  had  flattered  herself  that  she  knew  something 
of  England  and  English;  she  had  visited  the  island 
enough,  and  some  of  its  stateliest  homes;  and  she  had  had 
some  of  the  worst  young  peers  making  love  to  her.  But 
Sir  Ralph,  she  wrote  her  aunt,  evidently  regarded  her  "as 
something  between  a  squaw  and  a  pork-packer's  daughter." 

Sir  Ralph  threw  her  into  such  a  bog  of  humiliation  that 
she  floundered  at  every  step.  How  could  she  give  an  in 
telligent  reading  to  a  line  when  he  wanted  every  word 
sung  according  to  the  idiom  of  another  woman  of  another 
race?  How  could  she  embody  a  r61e  in  its  entirety  when 
every  utterance  and  motion  was  to  be  patterned  on  Sir 
Ralph's  wretched  imitations  of  a  woman  she  had  never 
seen? 

Sir  Ralph  not  only  threw  his  company  into  a  panic,  but 
he  revealed  a  positive  genius  for  offending  the  reporters, 
the  critics,  the  public.  Before  the  first  curtain  rose  there 
was  a  feeling  of  hostility,  against  which  the  disaffected 
and  disorganized  players  struggled  in  vain. 

His  play  was  a  beautiful  structure,  full  of  beautiful 
thoughts  expertly  wTrought  into  form.  But  Sir  Ralph, 
like  so  many  authors,  seemed  to  contradict  in  his  person 
everything  worth  while  in  his  work. 

His  wife,  Lady  Incledon,  knew  him  to  be  earnest,  hard 
working,  emotional,  timorous.  His  anxiety  and  modesty 
when  at  bay  before  the  public  gave  the  impression  of 
conceit,  contempt,  and  insolence.  If  he  had  been  more 
cocksure  of  his  play  he  would  not  have  been  so  critical 
of  its  interpreters.  If  he  had  not  been  so  afraid  of  the 
Americans  he  would  not  have  tried  to  make  them  afraid 
of  him.  No  tenderer-hearted  novelist  ever  wrote  than 
Dickens,  yet  he  had  the  knack  of  infuriating  mobs  of 
people  into  a  warm  desire  to  lynch  him.  No  sweeter- 
souled  poet  ever  sang  than  Keats,  yet  Byron  said  he  never 
saw  him  but  he  wanted  to  kick  him. 

120 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Sir  Ralph  Incledon  had  the  misfortune  to  belong  to 
this  class.  He  was  not  popular  at  home  and  he  was 
maddening  abroad.  He  made  Americans  remember 
Bunker  Hill  and  long  to  avenge  Nathan  Hale.  The 
critics  felt  it  their  patriotic  duty  to  make  reprisals  for 
all  the  Americans  who  had  failed  in  London  and  to  send 
this  Piccadillian  back  with  his  coat-tails  between  his  legs. 

The  opening  performance  in  New  York  was  a  first- 
class  disaster.  The  audience  did  not  follow  the  London 
custom  of  calling  the  author  out  and  booing  him.  It 
left  him  in  the  wings,  excruciated  with  ingrowing  speech. 
He  had  drawn  up  one  of  the  most  tactless  orations  ever 
prepared  in  advance  by  a  well-meaning  author.  He  was 
not  permitted  to  deliver  it.  He  had  a  cablegram  written 
out  to  send  his  anxious  wife  overseas.  He  did  not  send  it. 
When  he  read  the  next  morning's  papers  he  was  simply 
dazed.  He  had  come  as  a  missionary  direct  from  the 
capital  to  a  benighted  province  and  he  was  received  with 
jeers — or  "jahs,"  as  his  dialect  would  be  spelled  in  our 
dialect. 

He  wept  privately  and  then  put  on  an  armor  of  contempt. 
He  sailed  shortly  after,  leaving  the  Americans  marooned 
on  their  desert  continent. 

The  actors  were  treated  with  little  mercy  by  most  of 
the  critics,  except  to  be  used  as  bludgeons  to  whack  the 
author  with.  Sheila's  notices  were  of  the  "however" 
sort.  "Miss  Sheila  Kemble  is  a  promising  young  actress; 
the  part  she  played,  however,  was  so  irritating —  "  or, 
"In  spite  of  all  the  cleverness  of — "  or,  "Sheila  Kemble 
exhausted  her  resources  in  vain  to  give  a  semblance  of 
life  to — " 

Sheila  sent  the  clippings  to  Mrs.  Vining,  and  added: 
"Every  bouquet  had  a  brickbat  in  it.  We  are  not  long  for 
this  world,  I  fear." 

Roben  fought  valiantly  for  the  play.  He  squandered 
money  on  extra  spaces  in  the  papers  and  on  the  bill 
boards.  He  quoted  from  the  critics  who  praise  every- 
9  121 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

thing  and  he  emphasized  lines  about  the  scenery.  The 
play  simply  did  not  endure  the  sea  change.  People  who 
came  would  not  enjoy  it,  and  would  not  recommend  it. 
It  was  hard  even  to  give  away  complimentary  seats,  and 
the  result  was  one  that  would  have  been  more  amazing 
if  it  were  less  common;  a  successful  play  by  a  famous 
author  produced  with  a  famous  cast  at  a  leading  theater 
in  the  largest  city  of  the  New  World  was  played  to  a 
theater  that  could  not  be  filled  at  any  or  no  price.  The 
receipts  fell  to  forty  dollars  one  night. 

A  newspaper  wit  wrote,  "Last  night  the  crowds  on 
Broadway  were  so  dense  that  a  man  was  accidentally 
pushed  into  the  Odeon  Theater."  On  another  day  he  said, 
"Last  night  during  a  performance  of  Sir  Ralph  Incledon's 
masterpiece  some  miscreant  entered  the  Odeon  Theater 
and  stole  all  the  orchestra  chairs." 

The  slow  death  of  a  play  is  a  miserable  process.  The 
actors  began  to  see  the  nobilities  of  the  work  once  the 
author  was  removed  from  in  front  of  it.  They  regretted 
its  passing,  but  plays  cannot  live  in  a  vacuum.  Novels 
and  paintings  can  wait  patiently  and  calmly  in  suspended 
animation  till  their  understanders  grow  up,  but  plays, 
like  infants,  must  be  nourished  at  once  or  they  die  and 
stay  dead. 

Sheila  and  all  the  company  had  fought  valiantly  for 
the  drama.  Once  Sir  Ralph's  back  was  turned,  they  fell 
to  playing  their  rdles  their  own  way,  and  they  at  least  en 
joyed  their  work  more.  But  the  audiences  never  came. 

Sheila  was  plunged  into  deeps  of  gloom.  She  felt  that 
she  must  suffer  part  of  the  blame  or  at  least  the  punish 
ment  of  the  play's  non-success.  She  wished  she  had 
stayed  with  "A  Friend  in  Need." 

But  Reben  had  always  been  known  as  a  good  sport,  a 
plucky  taker  of  whatever  medicine  the  public  gave  him. 
After  a  bastinado  from  the  critics  he  had  waited  to  see 
what  the  people  would  do.  There  was  never  any  tell- 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

f 

ing.  Sometimes  the  critics  would  write  pasans  of  rapture 
and  the  lobby  would  be  as  deserted  as  a  graveyard, 
leaving  the  box-office  man  nothing  to  do  but  manicure  his 
nails.  Sometimes  the  critics  would  unanimously  con 
demn,  and  there  would  be  a  queue  at  the  door  the  next 
morning.  Sometimes  the  critics  would  praise  and  the 
mob  would  storm  the  window.  Sometimes  they  would 
blame  and  audiences  would  stay  away  as  if  by  conspiracy. 
In  any  case,  "the  box-office  tells  the  story." 

Cassard,  the  manager,  once  said  that  he  could  tell  if  a 
play  were  a  success  by  merely  passing  the  theater  an 
hour  after  the  performance  was  over.  A  more  certain 
test  at  the  Odeon  Theater  was  the  manner  of  Mr.  Chittick, 
the  box-office  man.  If  he  laid  aside  his  nail-file  without 
a  sigh  and  proved  patient  and  gracious  with  the  auto 
biographical  woman  who  loitered  over  a  choice  of  seats 
and  their  date,  the  play  was  a  failure.  If  Mr.  Chittick 
insulted  the  brisk  business  man  who  pushed  the  exact  sum 
of  money  over  the  ledge  and  weakly  requested  "the  two 
best,  please"  the  play  was  a  triumph.  Mr.  Chittick  was 
a  very  model  of  affability  while  Incledon's  play  occupied 
the  stage  of  the  unoccupied  theater. 

Reben's  motto  was  "The  critics  can  make  or  break  the 
first  three  weeks  of  a  play  and  no  more.  After  that  they 
are  forgotten."  If  he  saw  the  business  growing  by  so 
much  as  five  dollars  a  night  he  hung  on.  But  the  Incledon 
play  sagged  steadily.  At  the  end  of  a  week  Reben  had 
the  company  rehearsing  another  play  called  "Your  Uncle 
Dudley,"  an  old  manuscript  he  had  bought  years  ago  to 
please  a  star  he  quarreled  with  later. 

Reben  talked  big  for  a  while  about  forcing  the  run; 
then  he  talked  smaller  and  smaller  with  the  receipts. 
Finally  he  announced  that  "owing  to  previous  bookings 
it  will  be  necessary,"  etc.  "Mr.  Reben  is  looking  for 
another  theater  to  which  to  transfer  this  masterwork 
of  Sir  Ralph  Incledon.  He  may  take  it  to  Boston,  then 
to  Chicago  for  an  all-summer  run." 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

Eventually  he  took  it  to  Mr.  Cain's  storage  warehouse. 

"Your  Uncle  Dudley,"  appealed  to  Reben  as  a  stop 
gap.  It  would  cost  little.  The  cast  was  small;  only  one 
set  was  required.  The  title  rdle  fitted  Brereton  to  a  nicety. 
He  offered  Sheila  the  heroine,  who  was  a  "straight."  She 
cannily  chose  a  smaller  part  that  had  "character."  The 
play  was  flung  on  " cold" — that  is,  without  an  out-of-town 
try-out. 

It  caught  the  public  at  "the  psychological  moment," 
to  use  a  denatured  French  expression.  The  morning  after 
the  first  night  the  telephone  drove  Mr.  Chittick  frantic. 
He  almost  snapped  the  head  off  a  dear  old  lady  who  wanted 
to  buy  two  boxes.  It  was  a  hopeless  success. 

The  only  sour  face  about  the  place  except  his  was  the 
star's.  The  critics  accused  Tom  Brereton  of  giving  "a 
creditable  performance."  All  the  raptures  were  for 
Sheila.  She  was  lauded  as  the  discovery  of  the  year. 

The  critics  are  always  "discovering"  people,  as  Colum 
bus  discovered  the  Indians,  who  had  been  there  a  long 
while  before.  Two  critics  told  Reben  in  the  lobby  between 
the  acts  that  there  was  star-stuff  in  Sheila.  He  thanked 
them  both  for  giving  him  a  novel  idea:  "I  never  thought 
of  that,  old  man."  And  the  old  men  walked  away  like 
praised  children.  Like  children,  they  were  very,  very 
innocent  when  they  were  good  and  very,  very  incorrigible 
when  they  were  horrid. 

Tom  Brereton  behaved  badly,  to  Sheila's  thinking. 
To  his  thinking  she  was  the  evil  spirit.  He  gave  one  of 
those  examples  of  good  business  policy  which  is  called 
"professional  jealousy"  in  the  theater.  He  did  what  any 
manufacturer  does  who  resists  the  substitution  of  a  "just 
as  good  "  for  his  own  widely  advertised  ware.  Tom  Brere 
ton  was  the  star  of  the  piece  according  to  his  contracts 
and  his  prestige.  He  had  toiled  lifelong  to  attain  his 
height  and  he  was  old  enough  and  wise  enough  to  realize 
that  he  must  maintain  himself  stubbornly  or  new  ambi 
tions  would  crowd  him  from  his  private  peak. 

124 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Sheila  had  youth,  femininity,  and  beauty,  none  of 
which  qualities  were  Brereton's.  The  critics  and  the 
public  acclaimed  the  comet  and  neglected  the  planet. 
Reben's  press  agent,  Starr  Coleman,  flooded  the  press 
with  Sheila's  photographs  and  omitted  Brereton's,  partly 
because  the  papers  will  always  give  more  space  to  a  pretty 
woman  than  a  plain  man,  and  would  rather  publish  the 
likeness  of  a  rear-row  chorus  girl  than  of  the  eccentric 
comedian  who  heads  the  cast. 

Coleman  arranged  interviews  with  Sheila,  wrote  them 
and  gave  them  to  dramatic  editors  and  the  gush-girls  of 
the  press.  Coleman  compiled  what  he  called  the  "Sheila 
Kemble  cocktail"  and  demanded  it  at  the  bars  to  which 
he  led  the  arid  newspaper  men.  He  did  not  object  to 
the  recipe  being  mentioned. 

Sheila  won  the  audiences,  and  if  Brereton  omitted  her 
at  a  curtain  call  the  audience  kept  on  applauding  stub 
bornly  till  he  was  forced  to  lead  her  out.  She  was  always 
waiting.  She  was  greedy  for  points,  and  kept  building 
her  scenes,  encroaching  little  by  little. 

Brereton  sulked  awhile,  then  protested  formally  to  the 
stage-manager,  who  gave  him  little  sympathy.  Eventu 
ally  Brereton  tried  to  repress  Sheila's  usurpations. 

Little  unpleasantnesses  developed  into  open  wrangles. 
It  was  purely  a  business  rivalry,  and  Sheila  had  no  right 
to  expect  gallantry  in  a  field  where  she  condescended  to 
put  herself  on  an  equality  with  men.  But  she  expected 
it,  none  the  less.  The  labor-unions  show  the  same 
jealousy  of  women  when  they  trespass  on  their  profits 
in  the  mills  or  the  coal-mines. 

Sheila  began  to  hate  Brereton  with  a  young  woman's 
vivacity  and  frankness,  and  to  torment  him  mischievously. 
In  one  scene  he  had  to  embrace  her  with  fervor.  She  used 
to  fill  her  belt  with  pins  and  watch  him  wince  as  he  smiled. 
He  retaliated  with  as  much  dignity  as  he  could  muster. 
He  could  not  always  muster  much.  His  heart  was  full  of 
rage. 

125 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

He  visited  Reben  in  his  office  and  demanded  his  rights 
or  his  release.  Reben  tried  to  appease  him;  business 
was  too  good  to  be  tampered  with.  Reben  promised  him 
complete  relief — next  season.  Then  he  would  put  some 
body  else  in  Sheila's  place. 

He  could  afford  to  be  gracious  because  he  felt  that  the 
hour  had  come  to  launch  Sheila  as  a  star.  Her  success  in 
a  character  r61e  of  peculiarly  American  traits  led  him  to 
abandon  hope  of  finding  a  foreign  success  to  float  her  in. 
Besides,  he  had  lost  so  much  money  on  Incledon's  London 
triumph  that  he  was  an  intense  partisan  for  the  native 
drama — till  the  next  American  play  should  fail,  and  the 
next  importation  succeed. 

One  evening,  during  the  second  entr'acte,  he  led  a  tall 
and  scholarly-looking  young  man  down  the  side  aisle 
and  back  of  a  box  to  the  stage.  He  left  the  uneasy  alien 
to  dodge  the  sections  of  scenery  that  went  scudding  about 
like  sails  without  hulls.  Then  he  went  to  dressing-room 
"No.  2"  and  tapped. 

Old  Pennock's  glum  face  appeared  at  the  door  with  a 
threatening ,  ' '  We-ell  ? ' ' 

The  intruder  spoke  meekly.   "  It's  Mr.  Reben." 

Pennock  repeated,  "We-ell?" 

Reben  shifted  to  his  other  foot  and  pleaded,  "May  I 
speak  to  Miss  Kemble  a  moment?" 

Pennock  closed  the  door.  Later  Sheila  opened  it  a 
little  and  peered  through,  clutching  together  a  light 
wrapper  she  had  slipped  into. 

"Oh,  hello!"  she  cried.  "I'm  sorry  I  can't  ask  you  in. 
I've  got  a  quick  change,  you  know." 

Even  the  manager  must  yield  to  such  conditions  and 
Reben  spoke  around  the  casement.  "I've  been  thinking," 
he  said,  "that  since  you  are  so  unhappy  in  this  company 
you'd  better  have  one  of  your  own." 

"For  Heaven's  sake!"  Sheila  gasped  at  this  unexpected 
bouquet. 

126 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Reben  went  on:  "Since  we  had  such  bad  success  with 
the  masterpiece  of  the  foremost  English  dramatist,  per 
haps  you  might  have  good  luck  by  going  to  the  other 
extreme.  I've  found  the  youngest  playwright  in  cap 
tivity.  Nowadays  these  kindergarten  college  boys  write 
a  lot  of  successes.  Joking  aside,  the  boy  has  a  manuscript 
I'd  like  you  to  look  over.  There  is  a  germ  of  something 
in  it,  I  think.  Will  you  just  say  Hello  to  him,  please?" 

Sheila  consented  with  eagerness.  Reben  beckoned  for 
ward  a  long  effigy  of  youthful  terror. 

"Miss  Kemble,  let  me  present  Mr.  Eugene  Vickery." 

"How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Nickerson?"  said  Sheila,  and 
thrust  one  bare  arm  through  the  chink  to  give  her  hand 
to  Vickery.  The  arm  was  all  he  could  see  of  her  except 
a  narrow  longitudinal  section  of  silhouette  against  the 
light  over  her  mirror. 

Vickery  was  so  hurt,  and  so  unreasonably  hurt,  by  her 
failure  to  recall  him  who  had  cherished  her  remembrance 
all  these  years,  that  his  surprise  escaped  him:  "I  met  you 
once  before,  but  you  don't  remember  me." 

She  lied  politely,  and  squeezed  the  hand  she  felt  around 
hers  with  a  prevaricating  cordiality.  "Indeed  I  do.  Let 
me  see,  where  was  it  we  met — in  Chicago,  wasn't  it,  this 
fall?" 

"No;  it  was  in  Braywood." 

"Braywood?  But  I've  never  been  in  Braywood,  have 
I?  Mr.  Reben,  have  I  ever  played  Bray —  Oh,  that's 
where  my  aunt  and  uncle  live!  But  was  I  ever  there?" 

"Very  long  ago." 

"  Oh,  don't  say  that !    Not  before  my  manager !" 

"As  a  very  little  girl." 

"Oh,  that's  better.  You  see,  I  go  to  so  many  places. 
And  that's  where  I  met  you?  You've  changed,  haven't 
you?" 

She  could  see  nothing  of  him  except  the  large,  lean  hand 
that  still  clung  to  hers.  She  got  it  back  as  he  laughed: 

"  Yes,  I've  grown  some  taller.  I  played  Hamlet  to  your 

127 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Ophelia.  Then  I  wrote  a  play  for  you,  but  you  got  away 
without  hearing  it.  Now  I've  written  another  for  you. 
You  can't  escape  this  time." 

"I  won't  try  to.  I'm  just  dying  to  play  it.  What  is 
it?" 

A  voice  spoke  in  sternly:  "Curtain's  going  up.  You 
ready,  Miss  Kemble?" 

"Good  Lord!  Yes!"  Then  to  Vickery.  "I've  got  to 
fly.  When  can  I  see  you,  Mr.  Bickerton?" 

Reben  solved  the  problem:  "Got  an  engagement  to 
supper?" 

"Yes,  but  I'll  break  it." 

"We'll  call  for  you." 

"Fine!    Good-by,  Mr.— Mr.  Braywood!" 

The  door  closed  and  Vickery  turned  away  in  such  a 
whirl  of  elation  that  he  almost  walked  into  the  scene 
where  Tom  Brereton  was  giving  an  unusually  creditable 
performance,  since  Sheila  was  off  the  stage. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

IT  must  be  a  strangely  thrilling  thing  to  be  a  woman  and 
meet  a  man  who  has  been  so  impressed  by  oneself  in 
childhood  that  he  has  never  forgotten  —  a  man  who 
has  indeed  devoted  his  gifts  and  ambitions  to  the  per 
fection  of  a  drama  to  exploit  one's  charms  and  one's 
gifts,  and  comes  back  years  after  with  the  extraordinary 
tribute. 

The  idol  needs  the  idolater  or  it  is  no  idol,  and  it  doubt 
less  watches  the  worshiper  with  as  much  respect  and 
trepidation  as  the  worshiper  it.  That  is  why  gods,  like 
other  artists,  have  always  been  jealous.  Their  trade  lies 
in  their  power  to  attract  crowds  and  hold  them.  Rivals 
for  glory  are  rivals  for  business. 

Vickery  was  Sheila's  first  playwright.  She  could  not 
fail  to  regard  him  as  a  rescuer  from  mediocrity,  and  see  a 
glamour  about  him. 

She  had  planned  to  go  to  a  late  dance  that  night  with 
some  people  of  social  altitude.  But  she  would  have 
snubbed  the  abbess  of  all  aristocracy  for  a  playwright 
who  came  offering  her  transportation  to  the  clouds. 

She  had  taken  her  best  bib  and  tucker  to  her  dressing- 
room  and  she  put  it  on  for  Vickery.  But  she  could  not 
dredge  up  the  faintest  memory  of  him,  and  he  found  her 
almost  utterly  strange  as  he  stared  at  her  between  the 
shaded  candles  on  the  restaurant  table.  She  was  different 
even  from  the  girl  he  had  seen  on  the  stage  recoiling  from 
Bret  Winfield's  unlucky  chivalry.  The  few  months  of 
intermission  had  altered  her  with  theatrical  speed.  She 
had  had  her  sentiments  awakened  by  Eldon  and  her 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

authority  enlarged  by  two  important  r61es.  Her  own 
character  was  a  whole  repertoire. 

When  Vickery  had  last  seen  her  she  was  playing  the 
second  young  woman  under  her  aunt's  protection;  now 
she  was  a  metropolitan  favorite  at  whose  side  the  big 
manager  of  the  country  sat  as  a  sort  of  prime  minister 
serving  her  royalty. 

First  came  the  necessary  business  of  ordering  a  supper. 
Sheila's  appetite  amazed  Vickery,  who  did  not  realize  that 
this  was  her  dinner,  or  how  hard  she  had  worked  for  it. 

When  the  waiter  had  hurried  off  with  a  speed  which 
he  would  not  duplicate  in  returning,  Sheila  must  hear 
about  her  first  acquaintance  with  Vickery.  He  spoke  with 
enthusiasm  of  the  little  witch  she  had  been,  and  described 
with  homage  her  fiery  interpretation  of  Ophelia  and  her 
maniac  shrieks.  He  could  still  hear  them,  he  said,  on 
quiet  nights.  He  pictured  her  so  vividly  as  she  had  sat 
on  his  mother's  knee  and  defended  her  family  name  and 
profession  that  Sheila's  eyes  filled  with  tears  and  she 
turned  to  Rebcn  for  confirmation  of  her  emotions.  There 
are  few  children  for  whom  we  feel  kindlier  than  for  our 
early  selves. 

Her  eyes  glistened  as  Vickery  recounted  his  own  boyish 
ambitions  to  write  her  a  play;  the  depths  of  woe  he  had 
felt  when  he  found  her  gone.  Then  he  described  his 
retrieval  of  her  during  the  riot  at  Leroy.  He  told  how  his 
friend  Bret  Winfield  had  been  knocked  galley-west  by 
some  actor  in  her  troupe.  He  had  forgotten  the  man's 
name,  but  his  words  brought  Eldon  back  in  the  room  and 
seated  him  like  a  forlorn  and  forgotten  Banquo  at  the 
table.  Sheila  blushed  to  remember  that  she  had  owed 
the  poor  fellow  a  letter  for  a  long  time. 

Then  Vickery  explained  that  Winfield  had  gone  to  her 
defense  and  not  to  her  offense,  and  she  felt  a  pang  of 
remorse  at  her  injustice  to  him,  also.  A  pretty  girl  has 
to  be  unjust  to  so  many  men. 

She  had  a  queer  thrill,  too,  from  Vickery's  statement 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

that  Winfield  had  vowed  to  meet  her  some  day  and  square 
himself  with  her;  also  to  meet  "that  actor"  some  day 
and  square  himself  with  him. 

This  strange  man  Winfield  began  to  loom  across  her 
horizon  like  an  approaching  Goliath.  She  tried  to  re 
member  how  he  had  looked,  but  recalled  only  that  he  was 
very  big  and  that  she  was  very  much  afraid  of  him. 

This  confusion  of  retrospect  and  prospect  was  dissi 
pated,  however,  when  Vickery  began  to  talk  of  the  play 
he  had  written  for  her.  Then  Sheila  could  see  nothing 
but  her  opportunity,  and  that  strange  self  an  actor 
visualizes  in  a  new  r61e.  The  rest  of  us  think  of  Hamlet 
as  a  certain  personage.  The  actor  thinks  of  "Hamlet  as 
Myself"  or  "Myself  as  Hamlet." 

Vickery's  play,  as  Reben's  play-reader  had  told  him, 
contained  an  idea.  But  an  idea  is  as  dangerous  to  a  play 
wright  as  a  loaded  gun  is  to  a  child.  The  problem  is, 
What  will  he  do  with  it? 

When  Vickery  told  Sheila  the  central  character  and 
theme  of  his  play  she  was  enraptured  with  the  possibilities. 
When  he  began  to  describe  in  detail  what  he  had  done  with 
them  she  was  tormented  with  disappointments  and  re 
sentments.  She  gave  way  to  little  gasps  of,  "Oh,  would 
she  do  that?"  "Oh,  do  you  think  you  ought  to  have  her 
say  that?" 

Vickery  was  young  and  opinionated  and  had  never  seen 
one  of  his  plays  after  the  critics  and  the  public  had  made 
tatters  of  it.  He  could  only  realize  that  he  had  spent 
months  of  intense  thought  upon  every  word.  He  was 
shocked  at  Sheila's  glib  objections. 

How  could  one  who  simply  heard  his  story  for  the 
first  time  know  what  ought  to  be  done  with  it  ?  He  forgot 
that  a  play's  prosperity,  like  a  joke's,  lies  in  the  ear  of 
those  who  hear  it  for  the  first  time. 

He  responded  to  Sheila's  skepticisms  with  all  the 
fanatic  eloquence  of  faith.  He  convinced  her  against  her 
will  for  the  moment.  She  liked  him  for  his  ardor.  She 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

liked  the  reasons  he  gave.  She  could  not  help  feeling: 
"What  a  decent  fellow  he  is!  What  a  kind,  wholesome 
view  of  life  he  takes!" 

Woman-like,  as  she  listened  to  his  ideas  she  fell  to  study 
ing  his  character  and  the  features  that  published  it.  She 
was  contrasting  him  with  Eldon — Eldon  so  powerful,  so 
handsome,  so  rich-voiced,  so  magnetic,  and  so  obstinate; 
Vickery  so  homely,  so  lean,  so  shambling  of  gait  and  awk 
ward  of  gesture,  his  voice  so  inadequate  to  the  big  emo 
tions  he  had  concocted.  And  yet  Eldon  only  wanted  to 
join  her  in  the  interpretation  of  other  people's  creations. 
This  spindle-shanks  was  himself  a  creator;  he  had  ideal 
ized  and  dramatized  a  play  from  and  for  Sheila's  very  own 
personality. 

She  began  to  think  that  there  was  something  a  trifle 
more  exhilarating  about  an  alliance  with  a  creative  genius 
than  with  just  another  actor.  In  her  youth  and  ignorance 
she  used  the  words  "creative"  and  "genius"  with  rever 
ence.  She  had  never  known  a  "creative  genius"  before 
— except  Sir  Ralph  Incledon,  and  she  loathed  him. 
Vickery  was  different. 

Suddenly  in  the  midst  of  Vickery's  description  of  the 
complexest  tangle  of  his  best  situation  Sheila  dumfounded 
him  by  saying,  "You  have  gray  eyes,  haven't  you?" 

He  collapsed  like  a  punctured  balloon  and  a  look  of 
intense  discouragement  dulled  his  expression.  Misunder 
standing  the  cause  of  his  collapse  entirely,  she  hastened  to 
add: 

"Oh,  but  I  like  gray  eyes!    Really!    Please  go  on!" 

Vickery  understood  her  misunderstanding,  smiled  la 
boriously,  then  with  an  effort  gathered  together  the 
wreckage  of  his  plot  for  a  fresh  ascension.  Just  as  he  was 
fairly  well  away  from  the  ground  again  Sheila  turned  to 
Reben  and  spoke  very  earnestly: 

"He  ought  to  write  a  good  play.  He  has  the  hands  of 
a  creative  genius — those  spatulate  ringers,  you  know. 
See!" 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

Since  she  had  known  Vickery  from  childhood,  she  felt 
at  liberty  to  stop  his  hand  in  the  midst  of  an  ardent 
gesture  and  submit  it  to  Reben's  inspection.  Vickery 
was  hugely  embarrassed.  Reben  was  gruff: 

"If  he's  such  a  genius  you'd  better  not  hold  his  hand. 
Let  him  gene." 

She  stared  at  Reben  in  amazement;  there  was  a  clang 
of  anger  in  his  sarcasm.  Abruptly  she  realized  that  she 
had  quite  ignored  him.  She  had  lent  Vickery  her  eyes 
and  ears  for  half  an  hour.  Reben's  anger  was  due  to 
hurt  pride,  the  miff  of  a  great  manager  neglected  by  a 
minor  actress  and  an  unproduced  author.  But  as  she 
glanced  up  into  the  Oriental  blackness  of  his  glare  she 
saw  something  lurking  there  that  frightened  her.  Her 
instant  intuition  was,  "Jealousy!"  Slower-footed  reason 
said,  "Absurd!" 

Reben  had  been  closely  attached  for  years  to  the  exalta 
tion  of  the  famous  actress,  Mrs.  Diana  Rhys,  who  had 
floated  to  the  stage  on  the  crest  of  a  famous  scandal  from 
a  city  where  she  had  been  known  as  Diana  the  Huntress. 
She  had  behaved  rather  better  as  an  actress  than  as  a 
housewife,  but  none  too  well  in  either  calling.  For  some 
years  she  had  been  bound  to  Reben  by  ties  that  were 
supposed  to  be  permanent. 

Sheila  reproached  herself  for  imagining  that  Reben 
could  be  jealous  of  herself.  Yet  she  cherished  a  super 
stitious  belief  that  when  she  disregarded  her  intuition  she 
went  wrong.  The  superstition  had  fastened  itself  on  her, 
as  superstitions  do,  from  her  habit  of  remembering  the 
occasional  events  that  seemed  to  confirm  it  and  forgetting 
the  numberless  events  that  disproved  it. 

She  restored  her  attention  to  Vickery 's  plot,  but  the 
background  of  her  thoughts  was  full  of  ominous  lightnings 
and  rumblings  like  a  summer  sky  when  a  storm  is  far  off 
but  inevitable. 

Now  the  plight  of  Vickery 's  heroine  seemed  much  less 
thrilling  than  her  own.  Here  she  sat  almost  betrothed  to 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

the  distant  Eldon,  almost  bewitched  by  the  new-comer, 
Vickery,  and  threatened  with  the  wrath  of  an  unexpected 
claimant  who  was  her  manager  and  held  both  her  present 
and  her  future  in  his  hand. 

She  studied  Reben  out  of  the  corner  of  her  eye.  This 
new,  this  utterly  unsuspected  phase  of  his,  made  necessary 
a  fresh  appraisal  of  him.  He  was  now  something  more 
and  something  less  than  her  manager.  He  was  something 
of  a  conquest  of  hers ;  but  did  he  hope  to  be  a  conqueror, 
too? 

It  was  strange  to  think  of  him  as  a  suitor — an  amorous 
manager!  a  business  man  with  a  bouquet!  In  this  guise 
he  looked  younger  than  she  had  seen  him,  yet  more  crafty, 
more  cruel  than  ever.  The  Orientalism  that  had  made 
him  so  shrewd  a  bargainer  in  the  bazar  was  now  in  a  harem 
humor.  His  black  hair  was,  after  all,  in  curls;  his  big 
eyes  were  shadowy,  wet;  his  fat  hands  wore  rings — a 
sanguine  ruby  twinned  with  a  gross  diamond  and  a  shifty 
opal,  like  the  back  of  an  iridescent  and  venomous  beetle. 

Sheila  thought  of  David  and  Solomon  with  their  many 
loves,  and  she  felt  that  perhaps  Mrs.  Rhys  was  not  suf 
ficient  for  this  man.  If  he  should  claim  her,  too,  what 
should  she  say  to  him?  Must  she  sacrifice  her  career  at 
its  very  outset  just  because  this  man  turned  monster? 

She  became  so  involved  in  her  own  meditations  that 
Vickery  found  her  almost  deaf  to  his  narrative.  He  lost 
the  thread  of  his  spinning  and  tangled  himself  in  it  like 
another  Lady  of  Shalott. 

Finally  Sheila  confessed  her  bewilderment.  She  spoke 
with  an  assumption  of  vast  experience:  "I  never  could 
tell  anything  from  a  scenario.  The  play  is  written  out, 
isn't  it?" 

' '  Oh  yes, ' '  said  Vickery.     ' '  May  I  send  it  to  your  hotel  ?" 

"I'd  rather  you'd  read  it  to  me,"  Sheila  pleaded. 
"You  could  explain  it,  you  know.  I'm  so  stupid." 

"That  would  be  splendid!"  said  Vickery.  "When? 
Where?" 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Before  Sheila  could  answer,  Reben  broke  in,  "At  my 
office,  at  three  to-morrow,  if  that  suits  you,  Miss  Kemble." 

She  demurred  feebly  that  they  would  be  interrupted  all 
the  time.  Reben  promised  absolute  peace  and  said,  with 
a  grim  finality:  "That's  settled,  then,  Mr.  Vickery.  To 
morrow,  my  office,  three  o'clock." 

There  was  such  a  sharp  dismissal  in  his  tone  that 
Vickery  found  himself  standing  with  his  hand  out  in  fare 
well  before  he  quite  realized  what  had  lifted  him  from  his 
chair. 

"You're  not  going?"  said  Sheila.  "You  haven't  fin 
ished  your  coffee." 

"I've  had  more  than  is  good  for  me,"  said  Vickery. 
"Good  night,  and  thank  you  a  thousand  times.  Good 
night,  Mr.  Reben." 

As  he  shambled  through  the  tables  to  the  door  Sheila 
said,  "Nice  boy." 

"So  you  seem  to  think,"  Reben  growled. 

She  stared  at  him  again,  troubled  at  his  manner,  con 
firmed  in  her  suspicion,  afraid  of  it  and  of  him.  But  she 
said  nothing. 

"Want  a  liqueur?"  he  snapped. 

She  shook  her  head. 

He  said  to  her,  "I'll  take  you  home,"  and  to  the  waiter, 
"Check!" 

"Just  put  me  in  a  cab,"  said  Sheila. 

He  fumed  with  impatience  over  the  waiter's  delay  with 
the  check  and  the  change,  the  time  Sheila  spent  getting 
her  wrap  from  the  cloak-woman,  and  her  gloves  and  her 
hand-bag.  He  tapped  his  foot  with  impatience  while  the 
starter  whistled  up  a  taxicab.  Then  he  spoke  to  the 
driver  and  got  in  with  her. 

He  said  nothing  but,  "May  I  smoke?"  But  she  noted 
his  fearsome  mien  as  the  light  of  his  match  painted  it  with 
startling  vividness  against  the  dark.  The  ruby  of  his 
ring  was  like  an  evil  eye.  His  thick  brows  drew  down 
over  the  black  fire  of  his  own  eyes,  and  his  lips  were  red 

135 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

over  the  big  teeth  that  clenched  the  cigar.  Then  he 
puffed  out  the  match  and  his  face  vanished.  He  said 
nothing  till  they  reached  the  apartment-hotel  where  she 
lived.  He  helped  her  out  and  paid  the  driver.  She 
put  forth  her  hand  to  bid  him  good  night,  but  he  said : 
"I  want  a  word  with  you,  please." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

HE  led  the  way  into  the  lobby.  She  was  intensely 
disturbed,  but  she  could  not  find  the  courage  to 
quarrel  with  him  in  the  presence  of  the  hall-boys.  Those 
who  had  suites  of  rooms  were  permitted  to  receive  guests 
in  them.  Reben  was  the  first  man  that  had  come  alone 
to  Sheila's  rooms,  and  she  felt  that  the  elevator-boy  was 
trying  to  disguise  his  cynical  excitement. 

What  could  she  say  to  him  ?  how  rebuke  an  unexpressed 
comment?  She  hoped  that  Pennock  would  be  there  or 
would  come  along  speedily  to  save  the  situation.  She 
was  angry  and  discomfited  as  she  unlocked  her  door, 
switched  on  the  lights,  and  offered  Reben  a  chair  in  her 
little  parlor. 

Sheila  saw  that  Reben's  eyes  were  eagerly  searching 
the  apartment  for  signs  of  a  third  person.  She  was 
tempted  to  go  to  Pennock's  room  and  call  some  message 
to  her  imaginary  presence.  But  she  resented  her  own 
cowardice  and  her  need  of  a  duenna.  She  laid  off  her  hat, 
seated  herself  with  smiling  hospitality,  and  waited  for 
Reben  to  say  his  say. 

He  indicated  his  cigar  with  a  querying  lift  of  the  eye 
brows,  and  she  nodded  her  consent. 

Then  the  business  man  of  him  began  at  the  beginning 
as  if  he  had  much  to  say  in  a  short  time  and  did  not 
want  to  lose  the  momentum  of  his  emotion : 

"Sheila,  you're  a  wonderful  girl.  If  you  weren't  I 
shouldn't  be  taking  you  up  from  the  army  of  actresses 
that  are  just  as  ambitious  as  you  are.  I'd  be  very  blind 
10  137 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

not  to  see  what  the  whole  public  sees  and  not  to  feel  what 
everybody  feels. 

"This  cub  Vickery  felt  your  fascination  when  you  were 
a  child.  He  never  forgot  you.  He's  trying  to  put  some 
thing  of  you  into  his  play.  That  other  fellow  he  told  you 
about  has  made  a  vow  to  get  to  you.  You  have  draught, 
and  all  that  it  means. 

"But  the  brighter  the  light,  the  firmer  its  standard 
must  be.  The  farther  your  lantern  shines,  the  bigger  and 
stronger  and  taller  a  lighthouse  it  needs.  You  know 
there's  such  a  thing  as  hiding  a  light  under  a  bushel. 

"  Now,  I'm  already  as  big  a  manager  as  you'll  ever  be  a 
star.  I  can  give  you  advantages  nobody  else  can  give 
you.  I've  given  you  some  of  them  already.  I  can  give 
you  more.  In  fact,  nobody  else  can  give  you  any,  for 
I've  got  you  under  a  contract  that  makes  it  possible  for 
me  to  keep  anybody  else  from  exploiting  you.  But  I'm 
willing  and  anxious  to  do  everything  I  can  for  you.  The 
question  is,  what  are  you  willing  to  do  for  me?" 

Sheila  knew  what  he  meant,  but  she  answered  in  a  shy 
voice:  "Why,  I'll  do  all  I  can — of  course.  I'll  work  like  a 
slave.  I'll  try  to  make  you  all  the  money  I'm  able  to." 

"Money?  Bagh!"  he  sneered.  "What's  money  to 
me?  I  love  it — as  a  game,  yes.  But  I  don't  mind  losing 
it.  You've  known  me  to  drop  forty  or  fifty  thousand  at 
a  throw  and  not  whimper,  haven't  you?" 

"Yes." 

"You'll  do  all  you  can,  you  say.  But  will  you ?  There's 
something  in  life  besides  money,  Sheila.  There's  — 
there's — "  He  tried  to  say  "love,"  but  it  was  an  im 
possible  word  to  get  out  at  once.  Instead  he  groped  for 
her  hand  and  took  it  in  his  hot  clench. 

She  drew  her  cold,  slim  fingers  away  with  a  petulant, 
girlish,  "Don't!" 

He  sighed  desperately  and  laughed  with  bitterness. 
"I  knew  you'd  do  nothing  for  me.  You'd  let  me  work 
for  you,  and  make  you  famous  and  rich,  and  squander 

138 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

fortunes  on  your  glory,  and  you'd  let  me  die  of  loneliness. 
You'd  let  me  eat  my  heart  out  like  a  love-sick  stage-door 
Johnny  and  you  wouldn't  care.  But  I  tell  you,  Sheila, 
even  a  manager  is  a  man,  and  I  can't  live  on  business  alone. 
I've  got  to  have  some  woman's  companionship  and  tender 
ness  and  devotion." 

Sheila  could  not  refrain  from  suggesting,  "I  thought 
Mrs.  Rhys—" 

"Mrs.  Rhys!"  he  snarled.  "That  worn-out,  burned- 
out  volcano?  She's  an  old  woman.  I  want  youth  and 
beauty  and —  Oh,  I  want  you,  Sheila." 

"I — I'm  sorry,"  she  almost  apologized,  trying  not  to 
insult  such  ardor. 

"Oh,  I  know  I'm  not  young  or  handsome,  but  I'll  sur 
round  you  with  youth.  I'll  buy  that  play  of  your  friend 
Vickery's;  I'll  get  the  biggest  man  in  the  country  to  whip 
it  into  shape;  I'll  give  it  the  finest  production  ever  a  play 
had;  I'll  make  the  critics  swallow  it;  I'll  buy  the  ones 
that  are  for  sale,  and  I'll  play  on  the  vanity  of  the  others. 
If  it  fails,  I'll  buy  you  another  play  and  another  till  you 
hit  the  biggest  success  ever  known.  Then  I'll  name  a 
theater  after  you.  I'll  produce  you  in  London,  get  you 
commanded  to  court.  I'll  make  you  the  greatest  actress 
in  the  world.  These  young  fellows  may  be  pretty  to  play 
with,  but  what  can  they  do  for  you  except  ruin  your  career 
and  interfere  with  your  ambition  and  make  a  toy  of  you  ? 
I  can  give  you  wealth  and  fame  and — immortality !  And 
all  I  ask  you  to  give  me  is  your — your" — now  he  said  it — 
"your  love." 

"I — I'm  sorry,"  Sheila  mumbled. 

"You  mean  you  won't?"  he  roared. 

"How  can  I?"  she  pleaded,  still  apologetic.  "Love 
isn't  a  thing  you  can  just  take  and  give  to  anybody  you 
please,  is  it?  I  thought  it  was  something  that — that 
takes  you  and  gives  you  to  anybody  it  pleases.  Isn't  that 
it?  I  don't  know.  I'm  not  sure  I  know  what  love  is. 
But  that's  what  I've  always  understood." 

i39 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

He  grunted  at  the  puerility  of  this,  and  said,  brusquely, 
"Well,  if  you  can't  give  me  love,  then  give  me — you." 

"How  do  you  mean — give  you  me?" 

"  Oh,  you're  no  child,  Sheila,"  he  snarled.  "  Don't  play 
the  ingenue  with  me.  You  know  what  I  mean." 

Her  voice  grew  years  older  as  she  answered,  icily: 
"When  you  say  I'm  no  child,  it  makes  me  think  I  under 
stand  what  you  mean.  But  I  can't  believe  that  I  do." 

"Why?" 

"Well,  you've  known  my  father  and  mother  so  long  and 
they  like  you  so  much,  and — well — it  doesn't  seem  pos 
sible  that  you  would  mean  me  any  harm." 

No  amount  of  heroics  could  have  shamed  him  like  that. 
His  eyes  rolled  like  a  cornered  wolf's.  He  shut  them,  and 
with  one  deep  breath  seemed  to  absolve  himself  and 
purify  his  soul.  He  mumbled,  "I — I  want  you  to — to 
marry  me,  Sheila!" 

Sheila  seemed  to  breathe  a  less  stifling  air.  She  felt 
sorry  for  him  now ;  but  he  asked  a  greater  charity  than  she 
could  grant.  She  answered:  "Oh,  I  couldn't  marry  any 
body;  not  now.  I  don't  want  to  marry — at  all."  She 
sought  for  the  least-insulting  explanation.  "It — it  would 
hurt  me  professionally." 

His  self-esteem  blinded  him  to  her  tact.  He  persisted : 
"We  could  be  married  secretly.  No  one  needs  to  know." 

She  protested,  "You  can't  keep  such  a  thing  secret." 

He  retorted:  "Of  course  you  can.  They  never  found 
out  that  Sonia  Eccleston  was  married  to  her  manager." 

"She  never  was!" 

"I  saw  her  with  their  child  in  Switzerland." 

"Then  it  was  true!  I've  heard  so  many  people  say  so. 
But  I  never  could  be  sure." 

"It's  true.  Our  marriage  could  be  kept  just  as  secret 
as  that." 

"Just  about!"  she  laughed,  with  sudden  triumph. 

He  was  too  earnest  to  realize  that  he  had  set  a  trap 
and  stepped  into  it  till  he  sprung  it. 

140 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

He  was  suddenly  enraged  at  her  and  at  himself.  He 
would  not  accept  so  farcical  a  twist  to  his  big  scene.  He 
broke  out  into  a  flame  of  wrathful  desire,  and  rose  threat 
eningly  : 

"Marriage  or  no  marriage,  Sheila,  you've  got  to  belong 
to  me,  or — or — " 

"Or  what?" 

"  Or  you'll  never  be  a  star.  You'll  never  play  that  play 
of  Vickery's  or  anybody  else's.  You'll  play  whatever  part 
I  select  for  you,  as  your  contract  says,  or  you'll  play  noth 
ing  at  all." 

He  only  kindled  Sheila's  tindery  temper.  She  leaped  to 
her  feet  and  stormed  up  in  his  face:  "Is  this  a  proposal 
of  marriage  or  a  piece  of  blackmail?  I  signed  a  contract, 
you  know,  not  a  receipt  for  one  slave.  Marry  you,  Mr. 
Reben?  Humph!  Not  if  you  were  the  last  man  on 
earth!  Not  if  I  had  to  black  up  and  play  old  darky 
women." 

The  passion  that  overmastered  him  resolved  to  over 
master  her. 

1 '  You  can't  get  away  from  me.     I  love  you !" 

He  thrust  his  left  arm  back  of  her  and  enveloped  her 
in  a  huge  embrace,  seizing  her  right  arm  in  his  hand. 
Sheila  had  been  embraced  by  numerous  men  in  her  stage 
career.  She  had  stood  with  their  arms  about  her  at  re 
hearsal  and  before  the  public.  She  had  replied  to  their 
ardors  according  to  the  directions  of  the  manuscript — 
with  shyness,  with  boldness,  with  rapture. 

At  one  of  the  rehearsals  of  "Uncle  Dudley,"  indeed, 
Reben  himself,  after  complaining  of  Brereton's  manner  of 
clasping  Sheila,  had  climbed  to  the  stage  and  demon 
strated  how  he  wanted  Sheila  embraced.  She  had  smiled 
at  his  awkwardness  and  thought  nothing  of  it. 

But  that  was  play-acting,  with  people  looking  on.  This 
was  reality,  in  seclusion.  Intention  is  nearly  everything. 
Then  it  was  business.  Now  the  touch  of  his  hand  upon 
her  elbow  made  her  flesh  creep;  the  big  arm  about  her 

141 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

was  as  repulsive  as  a  python's  coil.  She  fought  away 
from  him  in  a  nausea  of  hatred.  While  his  muscles 
exerted  all  their  tyranny  over  her  little  body,  his  lips  were 
pleading,  maundering  appeals  for  a  little  pity,  a  little  love. 

She  fought  him  in  silence,  dreading  the  scandal  of  a 
scream.  She  wanted  none  of  that  publicity.  Her  silence 
convinced  him  that  her  resistance  was  not  sincere;  he 
thought  it  really  the  primeval  instinct  to  put  up  an  inter 
esting  struggle  and  sweeten  the  surrender. 

With  a  chuckle  of  triumph  he  drew  her  to  his  breast 
and  thrust  his  head  forward  toward  the  cheek  dimly 
aglow.  But  just  as  he  would  have  kissed  her  she  twisted 
in  his  clutch  and  lurched  aside,  wrenched  her  right  arm 
free,  and  bent  it  round  her  head  to  protect  her  precious 
flesh.  Then  as  he  thrust  his  head  forward  again  in  pur 
suit  of  her,  she  swung  her  arm  back  with  all  her  might  and 
drove  her  elbow  into  his  face. 

Some  Irish  instinct  of  battle  inspired  her  to  swing  from 
waist  and  shoulder  and  put  her  whole  weight  into  the 
blow.  Only  his  Reben  luck  saved  him  from  having  a 
mouthful  of  loose  teeth,  a  broken  nose,  or  a  squashed  eye. 
As  it  was,  the  little  bludgeon  fell  on  his  eminent  cheek 
bone  with  an  impact  that  almost  knocked  him  senseless 
amid  a  shower  of  meteors. 

Reben's  heartache  was  transferred  to  his  head.  His 
arms  fell  from  her  and  romance  departed  in  one  enor 
mously  prosaic  "Ouch!" 

The  victorious  little  cave-woman  cowered  aside  and 
rubbed  her  bruised  elbow,  and  pouted,  and  felt  ashamed 
of  herself  for  a  terrible  brute.  Then,  as  the  ancient 
Amazons  must  undoubtedly  have  done  after  every  battle, 
she  began  to  cry. 

Reben  was  too  furious  to  weep.  He  nursed  his  splitting 
skull  in  his  hands  and  thought  of  the  Mosaic  law  "an  eye 
for  an  eye."  He  longed  for  surcease  of  pain  so  that  he 
might  devise  a  perfect  revenge  against  the  little  beast 
that  had  tried  to  murder  him  just  because  he  paid  her  the 

142 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

supreme  honor  of  loving  her.  He  could  not  trust  himself 
to  speak.  He  found  his  hat  and  went  out,  closing  the  door 
softly. 

The  elevator  that  took  him  down  returned  shortly  with 
Pennock.  She  had  seen  Reben  cross  the  hotel  lobby,  and 
she  came  in  with  a  glare  of  horror.  She  sniffed  audibly 
the  cigar-smoke  in  the  precincts.  Her  wrath  was  so  dire 
that  she  stared  at  Sheila  weeping,  and  made  no  motion 
toward  her  till  Sheila  broke  out  in  a  clutter  of  sobs: 

''I — I — want  some  witch-hazel  for  my  elbow.  I  think 
I  b-b-broke  it  on  old  Reben's  j-j-jaw." 

Then  the  amazing  Pennock  caught  her  in  her  arms  and 
laughed  aloud.  It  was  the  first  time  Sheila  had  heard  her 
laugh  aloud.  But  when  she  looked  up  Pennock  was 
weeping  as  well,  the  tears  sluicing  down  into  her  smile. 


CHAPTER  XX 

OHEILA  wept  more  as  Pennock  helped  her  to  un- 
O  dress  and  drew  the  sleeve  tenderly  over  the  in 
vincible  elbow.  She  wept  into  the  bath  and  she  wept 
into  her  pillow.  She  ran  a  gamut  of  emotions  from  self- 
pity  to  self-contempt  for  so  unlady-like  a  method  of 
extricating  herself  from  a  predicament  that  no  lady  would 
have  got  into.  She  reproached  herself  for  being  some  kind 
of  miserable  reptile  to  have  inspired  either  the  affection 
or  the  insolence  of  so  loathsome  another  reptile  as  Reben. 

Then  she  bewailed  the  ruin  of  her  career.  That  was 
gone  forever.  She  bewailed  the  destruction  of  Vickery's 
hopes — such  a  nice  boy !  If  she  had  not  permitted  Reben 
to  be  so  rude  to  Vickery  he  never  would  have  been  so  rude 
to  her.  She  would  give  up  the  stage  and  go  live  at  her 
father's  house,  and  die  an  old  maid  or  marry  a  preacher 
or  a  milkman  or  something. 

She  wept  herself  out  so  completely  that  she  slept  till 
one  o'clock  the  next  afternoon.  When  she  was  up  she 
stood  at  her  window  and  gazed  ruefully  across  the  city. 
On  a  distant  roof  she  could  just  see  the  tall  water-tanks 
marked  "Odeon  Theater,"  and  a  wall  of  the  theater 
•carrying  an  enormous  blazon  of  the  play  with  Tom  Brere- 
ton's  name  in  huge  letters  and  hers  in  large.  She  would 
never  appear  there  again.  She  supposed  Reben  would 
send  her  understudy  on  to-night.  Of  course  the  reading 
of  Vickery's  play  at  three  o'clock  was  all  off. 

It  would  be  of  no  use  to  go  to  the  office.  Reben 
wouldn't  be  there.  He  would  doubtless  be  in  a  hospital 
with  his  face  in  splints. 

144 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

She  wondered  if  she  had  fractured  his  skull — and  how 
many  years  they  gave  you  for  doing  that  to  a  man. 
She  could  claim  that  she  did  it  in  self-defense,  of  course, 
but  she  had  no  witnesses  to  prove  it. 

She  spent  hours  in  putting  herself  into  all  imaginable 
disasters.  The  breakfast  Pennock  commanded  her  to  eat 
she  only  dabbed  at. 

At  half  past  three  the  telephone  rang.  The  office-boy 
at  Reben's  hailed  her  across  the  wire: 

"That  choo,  M'Skemble?  This  is  Choey.  Say,  M'Skem- 
ble,  Mis'  Treben  wantsa  speak  choo.  Hola  wire  a  min't, 
please." 

Sheila  reached  out  and  hooked  a  chair  with  her  foot  and 
brought  it  up  to  catch  her  when  the  blow  fell.  Reben's 
voice  was  full  of  restrained  cheerfulness : 

' '  That  you,  Sheila  ?    Are  you  ill  ?" 

"Why,  no!     Why?" 

"You  had  an  appointment  here  at  three.  We're  still 
waiting." 

"But  you  don't  want  to  see — me,  do  you?" 

"And  why  not?" 

"But  last  night  you  said — " 

"Last  night  I  was  talking  to  you  about  personal  affairs. 
This  is  business.  That  was  at  your  home.  This  is  my 
office.  Hop  in  a  cab  and  come  on  over.  I'll  explain." 

She  was  in  such  a  daze  as  she  made  ready  to  go  that 
when  she  had  her  hat  on  she  could  not  find  it  with  her 
hat-pin.  Pennock  performed  the  office  for  her.  When 
she  reached  Reben's  office  she  meekly  edged  through  the 
crowd  of  applicants  waiting  like  the  penniless  souls  on  the 
wrong  side  of  the  River  Styx.  She  thought  that  Eldon 
must  have  been  one  of  these  once.  Some  of  these  were 
future  Eldons,  future  Booths. 

Joey,  the  office-boy,  hailed  her  with  pride,  swung  the 
gate  open  for  her,  and  led  her  to  Reben's  door.  He  did 
that  only  for  stars  or  managers  or  playwrights  of  recent 
success. 

US 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Reben  was  alone.  He  was  dabbing  his  mumpsy  cheek 
with  a  handkerchief  he  wet  at  a  bottle.  He  smiled  at 
her  with  a  mixture  of  apology  and  rebuke. 

"There  you  are!  the  suffragette  that  took  my  face 
for  a  shop  window.  I  told  everybody  I  stumbled  and  hit 
my  head  on  the  edge  of  a  table.  If  you  will  be  kind 
enough  not  to  deny  the  story — " 

"Of  course  not!     I'm  so  sorry!     I  lost  my  head!" 

"Thank  you.  So  did  I.  Last  night  I  made  a  fool  of 
myself.  To-day  I'm  a  business  man  again.  I  made  you 
a  proposition  or  two.  You  declined  both  with  emphasis. 
I  ought  not  to  have  insisted.  You  didn't  have  to  as 
sassinate  me.  I'll  forgive  you  if  you'll  forgive  me." 

"Of  course,"  said  Sheila,  sheepishly. 

Reben  spoke  with  great  dignity,  yet  with  meekness. 
"We  understand  each  other  better  now,  eh?  I  meant 
what  I  said  about  being  crazy  about  you.  If  you'd  let 
me,  I  could  love  you  very  much.  If  you  won't,  I'll  get 
over  it,  I  suppose.  But  the  proposition  stands.  If  you 
would  marry  me — " 

"I'm  not  going  to  marry  anybody,  I  tell  you." 

"You  promise  me  that?" 

Sheila  felt  it  safer  not  to  promise  forever,  but  safe 
enough  to  say,  "Not  for  a  long  time,  anyway." 

Reben  stared  at  her  grimly.  "Sheila,  I'm  a  business 
man;  you're  a  business  woman.  I'll  play  fair  with  you 
if  you'll  play  fair  with  me.  I'll  make  a  star  of  you  if 
you'll  do  your  share.  You  wouldn't  flirt  with  me  or  let 
me  make  a  fool  of  you.  Then  be  a  man  and  we'll  get 
along  perfectly.  If  you'll  stick  to  me,  not  quit  me,  not 
hamper  me,  not  play  tricks  on  me,  and  abide  by  your 
contract,  I'll  do  the  same  for  you.  I'll  put  you  up  in  the 
big  lights.  Will  you  stand  by  me,  Sheila,  as  man  to  man 
— on  your  honor  as  a  gentleman?" 

She  repeated  his  words  with  a  kind  of  amused  solemnity : 
"As  man  to  man,  on  my  honor  as  a  gentleman,  I'll  stand 
by  you  and  fulfil  my  contract." 

146 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"Then  that's  all  right.     Shake  hands  on  it." 

They  shook  hands.     His  grasp  was  hot  and  fierce  and 

slow  to  let  go.     His  eyes  burned  over  her  with  a  menace 

that  belied  his  icy  words. 

When  the  bond  was  sealed  with  the  clasp  of  hands 
Reben  breathed  heavily  and  pressed  a  button  on  his  desk. 
"Now  for  the  young  Shakespeare.  We've  kept  him 
waiting  long  enough.  He's  cooled  his  heels  till  he  must 
have  cold  feet  by  now.  Joey,  show  Mr.  Vickery  in; 
and  then  I  don't  want  to  be  disturbed  by  anybody  for 
anything.  I'll  wring  your  neck  if  you  ring  my  telephone — 
unless  the  building  catches  on  fire." 

"Yes,  sir;  no,  sir,"  said  Joey;  and,  holding  the  door 
ajar,  he  beckoned  and  whistled  to  Vickery,  and,  having 
admitted  him,  dispersed  the  rabble  outside  with  brevity: 
"  Nothin'  doin'  to-day,  folks.  Mis'  Treben's  went  home." 

Sheila,  Vickery,  and  Reben  regarded  one  another  with 
the  utmost  anxiety.  They  were  embarking  on  a  cruise  to 
the  Gold  Coast.  Success  would  mean  a  fortune  for  all; 
the  failure  of  any  would  mean  disaster  to  all. 

Usually  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  persuade  Reben 
to  give  three  consecutive  hours  of  his  busy  life  to  an 
audition;  but,  once  engaged,  he  listened  with  amazing 
analysis.  He  tried  to  sit  with  an  imaginary  audience. 
He  listened  always  for  the  human  note.  He  criticized, 
as  a  woman  criticizes  with  reference  not  to  art  or  logic  or 
truth,  but  to  etiquette,  morality,  and  attractiveness. 

The  virtuous  and  scholarly  Vickery,  as  he  read  his 
masterwork,  was  astounded  to  find  his  ideals  of  conduct 
riddled  by  a  manager,  and  especially  by  a  Reben.  He 
blushed  to  be  told  that  his  hero  was  a  cad  and  his  heroine 
a  cat.  And  he  could  hardly  deny  the  justice  of  the  criti 
cism  from  Reben' s  point  of  view,  which  was  that  of  an 
average  audience. 

Sheila,  feeling  that  Vickery  needed  support,  gave  him 
only  her  praise,  whatever  she  felt ;  little  giggles  of  laughter, 

147 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

little  gasps  of  "Delicious!"  and  cries  of,  "Oh,  charming!" 
When  with  the  accidental  rarity  of  a  scholar  he  stumbled 
into  the  greatness  of  a  homely  sincerity,  he  was  amazed 
to  see  that  tears  were  pearling  at  her  eyelids  suddenly. 

His  heart  was  melted  into  affection  by  the  collaboration 
of  her  sympathy.  Without  it  he  would  have  folded  up 
his  manuscript  and  slunk  away,  for  Reben's  comments 
were  more  and  more  confusingly  cynical. 

When  he  finished  the  ordeal  Vickery  was  exhausted, 
parched  of  throat  and  of  heart.  Sheila  flung  him  ad 
jectives  like  flowers  and  his  heart  went  out  toward  her, 
but  Reben  was  silent  for  a  long  and  cruelly  anxious  while. 
Then  he  spoke  harshly: 

"A  manager's  main  business  is  to  avoid  producing 
plays.  It's  my  business  to  imagine  what  faults  the  pub 
lic  would  find  and  then  beat  'em  to  'em.  There  will  be 
plenty  of  faults  left.  And  don't  forget,  Mr.  Vickery,  that 
every  compliment  I  pay  a  playwright  costs  me  a  thousand 
dollars  or  more.  Frankly,  Mr.  Vickery,  I  don't  think 
your  play  is  right.  The  idea  is  there,  but  you  haven't 
got  it." 

Vickery 's  heart  sickened.     Reben  revived  it  a  little. 

"Maybe  you  can  fix  it  up.  If  you  can't  I'll  have  to 
get  somebody  to  help  you.  It's  too  late  to  produce  it  this 
season,  anyway.  Hot  weather  is  coming  on.  You  have 
all  summer  to  work  at  it." 

Vickery  wondered  if  he  should  live  so  long. 

Reben  went  on:  "I — I've  been  thinking,  Sheila — Miss 
Kemble,  that  it  might  be  a  good  idea  to  try  this  play  out 
in  a  stock  company.  Then  Mr.  Vickery  could  see  its 
faults." 

Sheila  protested,  "Oh,  but  I  couldn't  let  anybody  else 
play  it  first." 

"You  could  join  the  company  as  a  guest  for  a  week  and 
play  the  part  yourself." 

"Fine!"  Sheila  exclaimed.  "I've  been  planning  to  put 
in  a  good  hard  summer  in  stock.  It's  such  an  education — 

148 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

limbers  your  mind  up  so,  to  play  all  sorts  of  parts. 
See  if  you  can  find  me  a  good,  coolish  sort  of  town  with  a 
decent  stock  company  that  will  let  me  in." 

"Ay,  ay,  sir!"  said  Reben,  with  a  salute.  "And  now, 
Mr.  Vickery,  you've  got  your  work  cut  out,  too.  See  if 
you  can  get  your  play  into  shape  for  a  stock  production." 

Reben  was  attempting  to  scare  Vickery  just  enough  to 
make  him  toil,  but  he  would  have  given  up  completely  if 
Sheila  had  not  begged  him  to  go  on,  asked  him  to  come  to 
see  her  now  and  then  and  "talk  things  over." 

He  promised  with  gratitude  and  went,  carrying  that 
burden  of  delay  which  weighs  down  the  playwright  until  he 
reaches  the  swift  judgment  of  the  critics.  When  he  had 
gone  Reben  spoke  more  confidently  of  the  play.  He  was 
already  considering  the  cast.  He  mentioned  various 
names  and  discarded  this  actor  or  that  actress  because 
he  or  she  was  a  blond  or  too  dark,  too  tall,  or  too  short, 
lean,  fat,  commonplace,  eccentric.  Nobody  quite  fitted 
his  pictures  of  Vickery's  people.  At  length  he  said: 

"I'll  tell  you  a  man  I've  had  in  mind  for  the  lead. 
He'd  be  ideal,  I  think.  He's  young,  handsome,  educated; 
he's  got  breeding ;  he  can  wear  a  dress-suit ;  and  he  hasn't 
been  on  the  stage  long  enough  to  be  spoiled  by  the  gush 
of  fool  women.  He's  tall  and  athletic  and  a  gentleman." 

"And  who's  all  that?"  said  Sheila.  "The  angel 
Gabriel?" 

"Young  fellow  named — er — Elmore — no,  Eldon;  that's 
it.  You  must  know  him.  He  was  with  you  in  the 
'Friend  in  Need'  company." 

"Oh  yes,"  Sheila  murmured,  "I  know  him." 

"How  do  you  think  he  would  do?" 

"  I  think  he  would  be — he  would  be  splendid." 

"All  right,"  said  Reben.  "The  stock  experience 
would  be  good  for  him,  too.  He  might  make  a  good 
leading  man  for  you.  You  could  practise  team-work 
together.  If  he  pans  out,  I  could  place  him  with  the 
company  we  select  for  you." 

149 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"Fine!"  said  Sheila. 

Reben  could  never  have  suspected  from  her  tone  how 
deeply  she  was  interested  in  Eldon.  Unwittingly  he  had 
torn  them  asunder  just  as  their  romance  was  ripening 
into  ardor;  unwittingly  he  was  bringing  them  together. 

As  soon  as  she  left  Reben's  office  Sheila  hurried  to  her 
room  to  write  Eldon  of  their  reunion.  She  wrote  glowingly 
and  quoted  their  old  phrases.  When  she  had  sent  the 
letter  off  she  had  a  tremor  of  anxiety.  "What  if  he  finds 
me  changed  and  doesn't  like  me  any  more?  How  will 
he  have  changed  after  a  season  of  success  and — Dulcie 
Ormerod?" 


CHAPTER  XXI 

O  HEILA  had  earned  a  vacation.  And  she  had  nearly 
O  a  thousand  dollars  in  bank,  which  was  pretty  good 
for  a  girl  of  her  years,  and  enough  for  a  golden  holiday. 
But  her  ambition  was  burning  fiercely  now,  and  after  a 
week  or  two  of  golf,  tennis,  surf,  and  dance,  at  her  father's 
Long  Island  home,  she  joined  the  summer  stock  company 
in  the  middle-sized  city  of  Clinton.  She  did  twice  her 
usual  work  for  half  her  usual  salary,  but  she  was  de 
termined  to  broaden  her  knowledge  and  hasten  her 
experience. 

The  heat  seemed  intentionally  vindictive.  The  labor 
was  almost  incredible.  One  week  she  exploited  all  the 
anguishes  of  "Camille"  for  five  afternoons  and  six  eve 
nings.  During  the  mornings  of  that  week  and  all  day 
Sunday  she  rehearsed  the  pink  plights  of  "The  Little 
Minister,"  learning  the  r61e  of  Lady  Babbie  at  such 
odd  moments  as  she  could  steal  from  her  meals  or  her 
slumber  or  her  shopping  tours  for  the  necessary  costumes. 
The  next  week,  while  she  was  playing  Lady  Babbie  eleven 
times,  she  was  rehearsing  the  masterful  heroine  of  "The 
Lion  and  the  Mouse"  of  mornings.  While  she  played 
this  she  memorized  the  slang  of  "The  Chorus  Lady"  for 
the  following  week. 

Before  the  summer  was  over  she  had  lived  a  dozen  lives 
and  been  a  dozen  people.  She  had  become  the  pet  of  the 
town,  more  observed  than  its  mayor,  and  more  talked 
about  than  its  social  leader. 

She  had  established  herself  as  a  local  goddess  almost 
immediately,  though  she  had  no  time  at  all  for  accepting 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

the  hospitalities  of  those  who  would  fain  have  had  her  to 
luncheons,  teas,  or  dinners. 

She  had  no  mornings,  afternoons,  or  evenings  that  she 
could  call  her  own.  The  hardest- worked  Swede  cook  in 
town  would  have  given  notice  if  such  unceasing  tasks 
had  been  inflicted  on  her;  and  the  horniest-handed  labor- 
unionist  would  have  struck  against  such  hours  as  she  kept. 

To  the  townspeople  she  was  as  care-free  and  work-free 
as  a  fairy,  and  as  impossible  to  capture.  After  the  matine'es 
throngs  of  young  women  and  girls  waited  outside  the 
stage  door  to  see  her  pass.  After  the  evening  perform 
ances  she  made  her  way  through  an  aisle  of  adoring  young 
men.  She  tried  not  te  look  tired,  though  she  was  as 
weary  as  any  factory-hand  after  overtime. 

At  first  she  hurried  past  alone.  Later  they  saw  a  big 
fellow  at  her  side  who  proved  to  be  a  new-comer — Eldon. 
And  now  the  matinee  girls  divided  their  allegiance. 
Eldon's  popularity  quickly  rivaled  Sheila's.  But  he  had 
even  less  time  for  making  conquests,  for  he  had  a  slower 
memory  and  was  not  so  habited  to  stage  formulas. 

Nor  had  he  any  heart  for  conquests.  A  certain  number 
of  notes  came  to  his  letter-box,  some  of  them  anonymous 
tributes  from  overwhelmed  young  maidens;  some  of 
them  brazen  proffers  of  intrigue  from  women  old  enough 
to  know  better,  or  bound  by  their  marriage  lines  to  do 
better. 

Eldon,  who  had  thought  that  vice  was  a  city  ware, 
and  that  actors  were  dangerous  elements  in  a  small  town, 
got  a  new  light  on  life  and  on  the  theory  that  women 
are  the  pursued  and  not  the  pursuers. 

But  these  wild-oat  seeds  of  the  Clinton  fast  set  fell 
upon  the  rock  where  Sheila's  name  was  carved.  He  found 
her  subtly  changed.  She  was  the  same  sweet,  sympa 
thetic,  helpful  Sheila  that  had  been  his  comrade  in  art; 
but  he  could  not  recapture  the  Sheila  that  had  shared  his 
dreams  of  love. 

As  in  the  old  Irish  bull  of  the  two  men  who  met  on 

152 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

London  Bridge,  they  called  each  other  by  name,  then 
"looked  again,  and  it  was  nayther  of  us." 

The  Sheila  and  Eldon  that  met  now  were  not  the  Sheila 
and  Eldon  that  had  bade  each  other  good-by.  They  had 
not  outgrown  each  other,  but  they  had  grown  away  from 
each  other — and  behold  it  was  neither  of  them. 

The  Eldon  that  Sheila  had  grown  so  fond  of  was  a  shy, 
lonely,  blundering,  ignorant  fellow  of  undisclosed  genius. 
It  had  delighted  Sheila  to  perceive  his  genius  and  to 
mother  him.  He  was  like  the  last  and  biggest  of  her 
dolls. 

But  now  he  was  no  lenger  a  boy;  he  was  a  man  whose 
gifts  had  proved  themselves,  who  kad  "learned  his 
strength"  before  audience  after  audience  clear  across  the 
continent.  Dulcie  Ormerod  had  irritated  him,  but  she 
had  left  him  in  no  doubt  of  his  power. 

Already  he  had  maturity,  authority,  and  the  confidence 
of  a  young  Siegfried  wandering  through  the  forest  and 
understanding  the  birds  that  sang  him  up  and  sang  him 
onward. 

He  was  a  total  stranger  to  Sheila.  She  could  not 
mother  him.  He  did  not  come  to  her  to  cure  his  despair 
and  kindle  ambition.  He  came  to  her  in  the  armor  of 
success  and  claimed  her  for  his  own. 

At  first  he  alarmed  her  more  than  Reben  had.  She  felt 
that  he  could  never  truly  belong  to  her  again.  And  she 
felt  no  impulse  to  belong  to  him.  She  liked  him,  ad 
mired  him,  enjoyed  his  brilliant  personality,  but  rather  as 
a  gracious  competitor  than  any  longer  as  a  partner. 

To  Eldon,  however,  the  change  endeared  Sheila  only 
the  more.  She  was  fairer  and  wiser  and  surer,  worthier 
of  his  love  in  every  way.  He  could  not  understand  why 
she  loved  him  no  longer.  But  he  could  not  fail  to  see  that 
her  heart  had  changed.  It  seemed  a  treachery  to  him,  a 
treachery  he  could  feel  and  not  believe  possible. 

When  he  sought  to  return  to  the  room  he  had  tenanted 
in  her  heart  he  found  it  locked  or  demolished.  He  could 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

never  gain  a  moment  of  solitude  with  her.  Their  former 
long  walks  were  not  to  be  thought  of. 

" Clinton  isn't  Chicago,  old  boy,"  Sheila  said.  "Every 
body  in  this  town  knows  us  a  mile  off.  And  we've  no 
time  for  flirting  or  philandering  or  whatever  it  was  we  were 
doing  in  Chicago.  I'm  too  busy,  and  so  are  you." 

Eldon's  heart  suffered  at  each  rebuff.  He  murmured  to 
her  that  she  was  cruel.  He  thought  of  her  as  false  when 
he  thought  of  her  at  all.  But  that  was  not  so  often  as  he 
thought.  He  was  too  horribly  busy. 

To  a  layman  the  conditions  of  a  stock  company  are 
almost  unbelievable:  the  actors  work  double  time,  day 
and  night  shifts  both.  Most  of  the  company  were  used 
to  the  life.  In  the  course  of  years  they  had  acquired 
immense  repertoires.  They  had  educated  their  memories 
to  amazing  degrees.  They  could  study  a  new  r61e  be 
tween  the  acts  of  the  current  production. 

Sheila  and  Eldon  had  not  that  advantage.  They  spent 
the  intermission  after  one  act  in  boning  up  for  the  next, 
rubbing  the  lines  into  the  mind  as  they  rubbed  grease 
paint  into  the  skin. 

The  barge  of  dreams  was  a  freight-boat  for  them. 

When  Pennock  wakened  Sheila  of  mornings  it  was  like 
dragging  her  out  of  the  grave.  She  came  up  dead; 
desperately  resisting  the  recall  to  life.  At  night  she  sank 
into  her  sleep  as  into  a  welcome  tomb.  She  was  on  her 
feet  almost  always.  Her  hours  in  the  playmill  averaged 
fourteen  a  day.  She  grew  haggard  and  petulant.  Eldon 
feared  for  her  health. 

Yet  the  theater  was  her  gymnasium.  She  was  acquiring 
a  post-graduate  knowledge  of  stage  practice,  supplying 
her  mind  as  well  as  her  muscles,  like  a  pianist  who  practises 
incessantly.  If  she  kept  at  it  too  long  she  would  become  a 
mere  audience-pounder.  If  she  quit  in  time  the  training 
would  be  of  vast  profit. 

One  stifling  afternoon  Eldon  begged  her  to  take  a  drive 
with  him  between  matine'e  and  night,  out  to  "Lotus 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

Land,"  a  tawdry  pleasure-park  where  one  could  look  at 
water  and  eat  in  an  arbor.  She  begged  off  because  she 
was  too  busy. 

She  had  no  sooner  finished  the  refusal  than  he  saw  her 
face  light  up.  He  saw  her  run  to  meet  a  lank,  lugubrious 
young  man.  He  saw  idolatry  in  the  stranger's  eyes  and 
extraordinary  graciousness  in  Sheila's.  He  heard  Sheila 
invite  the  new-comer  to  buggy-ride  with  her  to  "Lotus 
Land"  and  take  dinner  outdoors. 

Eldon  dashed  away  in  a  rage  of  jealousy.  Sheila  did 
not  reach  the  theater  that  night  till  after  eight  o'clock. 

She  nearly  committed  the  unpardonable  sin  of  holding 
the  curtain.  The  stage-manager  and  Eldon  were  out 
looking  for  her  when  they  saw  a  bouncing  buggy  drawn 
by  a  lean  livery  horse  driven  by  a  lean,  liverish  man. 
Up  the  alley  they  clattered  and  Sheila  leaped  out  before 
the  contraption  stopped. 

She  called  to  the  driver:  "G'-by!  See  you  after  the 
performance."  She  called  to  the  stage-manager:  "Don't 
say  it!  Just  fine  me!"  Eldon  held  the  stage  door  open 
for  her.  All  she  said  was:  "Whew!  Don't  shoot!" 

She  had  no  time  to  make  up  or  change  her  costume. 
She  walked  on  as  she  was. 

After  the  performance  Eldon  came  down  in  his  street 
clothes  to  demand  an  explanation.  He  saw  the  same 
stranger  waiting  for  Sheila,  and  dared  not  trust  himself 
to  speak  to  her. 

The  next  morning,  at  rehearsal,  he  said  to  Sheila,  with 
laborious  virulence,  "Where's  your  friend  this  morning?" 

"He  went  back  to  town." 

"How  lonely  you  must  feel!" 

Sheila  was  startled  at  the  same  twang  of  jealousy  she 
had  heard  in  Reben's  voice  when  she  and  Vickery  first 
met.  It  angered  and  alarmed  her  a  little.  She  explained 
to  Eldon  who  Vickery  was,  and  that  he  had  run  down  to 
discuss  his  new  version  of  the  play.  Eldon  was  mollified 
a  little,  but  Sheila  was  not. 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

Vickery,  whose  health  was  none  too  good,  found  it  tedi- 
•ous  to  make  a  journey  from  Braywood  to  Clinton  every 
time  he  wanted  to  ask  Sheila's  advice  on  a  difficulty. 
He  suddenly  appeared  in  Clinton  with  all  his  luggage. 
He  put  it  on  the  ground  of  convenience  in  his  work. 
It  must  have  been  partly  on  Sheila's  account. 

Eldon  noted  that  Sheila,  who  had  been  rarely  able  to 
spare  a  moment  with  him,  found  numberless  opportunities 
to  consult  with  this  playwright.  Sheila's  excuse  was  that 
business  compelled  her  to  keep  in  close  touch  with  her 
next  starring  vehicle;  her  reason  was  that  she  found 
Vickery  oddly  attractive  as  well  as  oddly  irritating. 

In  the  first  place,  he  was  writing  a  play  for  her,  for  the 
celebration  of  her  genius.  That  was  attractive,  certainly. 
In  the  second  place,  he  was  not  very  strong  and  not  very 
comfortable  financially.  That  roused  a  sort  of  mother- 
sense  in  her.  She  felt  as  much  enthusiasm  for  his  career 
as  for  her  own.  And  then,  of  course,  he  proceeded  to  fall 
in  love  with  her.  It  was  so  easy  to  modulate  from  the 
praise  of  her  gifts  to  the  praise  of  her  beauty,  from  the 
influence  she  had  over  the  general  public  to  her  influence 
over  him  in  particular. 

He  exalted  her  as  a  goddess.  He  painted  her  future  as 
the  progress  of  Venus  over  the  ocean.  He  would  furnish 
the  ocean.  He  wrote  poems  to  her.  And  it  must  be 
intensely  comforting  to  have  poems  written  at  you;  it 
must  be  hard  to  remain  immune  to  a  sonnet. 

Vickery  quoted  love-scenes  from  his  play  and  applied 
them  to  Sheila.  He  very  slyly  attempted  to  persuade  her 
to  rehearse  the  scenes  with  him  as  hero.  But  that  was 
not  easy  when  they  were  buggy-riding. 

When  he  grew  demonstrative  she  could  hardly  elbow 
his  teeth  down  his  throat ;  for  his  manner  was  not  Reben's. 
It  needed  no  blow  to  quell  poor  Vickery's  hopes.  It 
needed  hardly  a  rebuke.  It  needed  nothing  more  than  a 
lack  of  response  to  his  ardor.  Then  his  wings  would  df oop 
,as  if  he  found  a  vacuum  beneath  them. 

156 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

To  repel  Reben  even  by  force  of  arms  had  seemed  the 
only  decent  thing  that  Sheila  could  do.  She  was  keeping 
herself  precious,  as  her  father  told  her  to.  To  keep  Eldon 
at  a  distance  seemed  to  be  her  duty,  at  least  until  she  could 
be  sure  that  she  loved  him  as  he  plainly  loved  her.  But 
to  fend  off  Vickery's  love  seemed  to  her  a  sin.  That 
would  be  quenching  a  fine,  fiery  spirit. 

But,  dearly  as  she  cherished  Vickery,  she  felt  no  impulse 
to  surrender,  not  even  to  that  form  of  conquest  which 
women  call  surrender.  And  yet  she  nearly  loved  him. 
Her  feeling  was  much,  much  more  than  liking,  yet  some 
how  it  was  not  quite  loving.  She  longed  to  form  a  life- 
alliance  with  him,  but  a  marriage  of  minds,  not  of  bodies 
and  souls. 

And  Vickery  proposed  a  very  different  partnership  from 
the  league  that  Eldon  planned.  Eldon  was  awfully  nice, 
but  so  all  the  other  women  thought.  And  if  she  and  Eldon 
should  marry  and  co-star  together,  there  could  be  no 
success  for  them,  not  even  bread  and  butter  for  two,  unless 
lots  and  lots  of  women  went  crazy  over  Eldon.  Sheila 
had  little  doubt  that  the  women  would  go  crazy  fast 
enough,  but  she  wondered  how  she  would  stand  it  to  be 
married  to  a  matinee  idol.  She  wondered  if  she  had 
jealousy  in  her  nature — she  was  afraid  she  had. 

In  complete  contrast  with  Eldon's  life,  Vickery's  would 
be  devoted  to  the  obscurity  of  his  desk  and  the  creation  of 
great  r61es  for  her  to  publish.  If  any  fascinating  were  to 
be  done,  Sheila  would  do  it.  She  thought  it  far  better 
for  a  man  to  keep  his  fascination  in  his  wife's  name. 

Thus  the  young  woman  debated  in  her  heart  the  merits 
of  the  rival  claimants.  So  doubtless  every  woman  does 
who  has  rival  claimants. 

Sometimes  when  Vickery  was  unusually  harrowing  in  his 
inability  to  write  the  play  right,  and  Eldon  was  unusually 
successful  in  a  performance,  Sheila  would  say  that,  after 
all,  the  better  choice  would  be  the  great,  handsome, 
magnetic  man. 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

Playwrights  and  things  were  pretty  sure  to  be  uncer 
tain,  absent-minded,  moody,  querulous.  She  had  heard 
much  about  the  moods  of  creative  geniuses  and  the  terrible 
lives  they  led  their  wives.  Wasn't  it  Byron  or  Bulwer 
Lytton  or  somebody  who  bit  his  wife's  cheek  open  in  a 
quarrel  at  the  breakfast-table  or  something  ?  That  would 
be  a  nice  thing  for  Vickery  to  do  in  a  hotel  dining-room. 

He  might  develop  an  insane  jealousy  of  her  and  forbid 
her  to  appear  to  her  best  advantage.  Worse  yet,  he 
might  devote  some  of  his  abilities  to  creating  roles  for 
other  women  to  appear  in. 

He  might  not  always  be  satisfied  to  write  for  his  wife. 
In  fact,  now  and  then  he  had  alluded  to  other  projects 
and  had  spoken  with  enthusiasm  of  other  actresses  whom 
Sheila  didn't  think  much  of.  And,  once — oh  yes! — once 
he  spoke  of  writing  a  great  play  for  Mrs.  Rhys,  that 
statue  in  cold  lava  whom  even  Reben  could  endure  no 
longer. 

A  pretty  thing  it  would  be,  wouldn't  it,  to  have  Sheila's 
own  husband  writing  a  play  for  that  Rhys  woman?  Well 
— humph!  Well!  And  Sheila  had  wondered  if  jealousy 
were  part  of  her  equipment! 

Between  the  actor  and  the  playwright  there  was  little 
choice. 

A  manager  also  had  offered  himself  to  Sheila.  She 
could  have  Reben  for  the  asking.  If  he  were  not  so  many 
things  she  couldn't  endure  the  thought  of,  he  might  make 
a  very  good  husband.  He  at  least  would  be  free  from 
temperament  and  personality.  Two  temperaments  in  one 
family  would  be  rather  dangerous. 

These  thoughts,  if  they  were  distinct  enough  to  be 
called  thoughts,  drifted  through  her  brain  like  flotsam  on 
the  stream  of  the  unending  demands  of  her  work.  This 
was  wearing  her  down  and  out  till,  sometimes,  she  re 
solved  that  whoever  it  might  be  she  married  he  needn't 
expect  her  to  go  on  acting. 

This  pretty  well  cleared  her  slate  of  suitors,  for  Reben, 

158 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

as  well  as  the  other  two,  had  never  suggested  anything 
except  her  continuance  in  her  career.  As  if  a  woman  had 
no  right  to  rest!  As  if  this  everlasting  battle  were  not 
bad  for  a  woman! 

In  these  humors  her  fatigue  spoke  for  her.  And  fatigue 
is  always  the  bitter  critic  of  any  trade  that  creates  it. 
Frequently  Sheila  resolved  to  leave  the  stage.  Often,  as 
she  fell  into  her  bed  and  closed  her  lead-loaded  eyelashes 
on  her  calcium-seared  eyes  and  stretched  her  boards- 
weary  soles  down  into  the  cool  sheets,  she  said  that 
she  would  exchange  all  the  glories  of  Lecouvreur,  Rachel, 
Bernhardt,  and  Duse  for  the  greater  glory  of  sleeping 
until  she  had  slept  enough. 

When  Pennock  nagged  her  from  her  Eden  in  the  morning 
Sheila  would  vow  that  as  soon  as  this  wretched  play  of  that 
brute  of  a  Vickery  was  produced  she  would  never  enter  a 
theater  again  at  the  back  door.  If  the  Vickery  play  were 
the  greatest  triumph  of  the  cycle,  she  would  let  somebody 
else — anybody  else — have  it.  Mrs.  Rhys  and  Dulcie 
Ormerod  could  toss  pennies  for  it. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

EVENTUALLY  Vickery's  play  was  ready  for  pro 
duction.  At  least  Reben  told  him,  with  Job's 
comfort : 

"We've  all  worked  at  it  till  we  don't  know  what  it's 
about.  We've  changed  everything  in  it,  so  let's  put  it  on 
and  get  rid  of  it." 

The  weather  of  the  rehearsal  week  for  the  Vickery  play 
was  barbarously  hot.  The  theater  at  night  was  a  sea  of 
rippling  fans.  The  house  was  none  the  less  packed;  the 
crowd  was  almost  always  the  same.  People  had  their 
theater  nights  as  they  had  their  church  nights.  The 
prices  were  very  low  and  a  seat  could  be  had  for  the 
price  of  an  ice-cream  soda.  People  were  no  hotter  in 
the  theater  than  on  their  own  porches,  and  the  play  took 
their  minds  off  their  thermometers. 

Reben  had  come  down  for  the  rehearsals.  There  were 
to  be  few  of  them — five  mornings  and  Sunday.  There  was 
no  chance  to  put  in  or  take  out.  The  actors  could  do  no 
more  than  tack  their  lines  to  their  positions. 

Still  Reben  found  so  much  fault  with  everything  that 
Vickery  was  ready  for  the  asylum.  Sheila  simply  had  to 
comfort  him  through  the  crisis.  Eldon  proceeded  to 
complicate  matters  by  developing  into  a  fiend  of 
jealousy.  Fatigue  and  strain  and  the  weather  were  all 
he  could  bear.  The  extra  courtesies  to  Vickery  were  the 
final  back-breaking  straws. 

He  told  Sheila  he  had  a  mind  to  throw  the  play.  The 
distracted  girl,  realizing  his  irresponsible  and  perilous  state, 
tried  to  tide  him  over  the  ordeal  by  adopting  him  and 

1 60 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

mothering  him  with  melting  looks  and  rapturous  compli 
ments.  This  course  brought  her  into  further  difficulties 
with  the  peevish  author. 

While  they  were  rehearsing  Vickery's  play  they  were 
of  course  performing  another. 

By  some  unconscious  irony  the  manager  had  chosen  to 
revive  a  melodrama  of  arctic  adventure,  thinking  perhaps 
to  cool  the  audience  with  the  journey  to  boreal  regions. 
The  actors  were  forced  to  dress  in  polar-bear  pelts,  and 
each  costume  was  an  ambulant  Turkish  bath.  The  men 
wore  long  wigs  and  false  beards.  The  spirit  gum  that 
held  the  false  hair  in  place  frequently  washed  away  from 
the  raining  pores  and  there  were  astonishingly  sudden 
shaves  that  sent  the  audience  into  peals  of  laughter. 

Eldon  congratulated  himself  that  his  face  at  least  was 
free,  for  he  was  a  faithful  Eskimo.  But  in  one  scene, 
which  had  been  rehearsed  without  the  properties,  it  was 
his  duty  to  lose  his  life  in  saving  his  master's  life.  On  the 
first  night  of  the  performance  the  hero  and  the  villain 
struggled  on  two  big  wabbly  blocks  of  blue  papier- 
mache  supposed  to  represent  icebergs.  Eldon,  the  Es 
kimo,  was  slain  and  fell  dead  to  magnificent  applause. 
But  his  perspiratory  glands  refused  to  die  and  his  dia 
phragm  continued  to  pant. 

And  then  his  grateful  master  delivered  a  farewell 
eulogy  over  him.  And  as  a  last  tribute  spread  across  his 
face  a  great  suffocating  polar-bear  skin!  There  were 
fifteen  minutes  more  of  the  act,  and  Sheila  in  the  wings 
wondered  if  Eldon  would  be  alive  or  completely  Desde- 
monatized  when  the  curtain  fell. 

He  lived,  but  for  years  after  he  felt  smothered  when 
ever  he  remembered  that  night. 

During  the  rest  of  the  week  his  master's  farewell 
tribute  was  omitted  at  Eldon's  request.  But  it  was  im 
possible  to  change  the  scene  to  Florida  and  the  arctic 
costumes  had  to  be  endured.  Sheila's  own  costumes  were 
almost  fatal  to  her. 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

And  that  was  the  play  they  played  afternoons  and  eve 
nings  while  they  devoted  their  mornings  to  whipping 
Vickery's  drama  into  shape. 

And  now  Reben,  goaded  by  the  heat  as  by  innumera 
ble  gnats,  and  fuming  at  the  time  he  was  wasting  in  the 
dull,  hot  town  where  there  was  nothing  to  do  of  evenings 
but  walk  the  stupid  streets  or  visit  a  moving-picture  shed 
or  see  another  performance  of  that  detestable  arctic  play— 
Reben  proceeded  to  resent  Sheila's  graciousness  to  both 
actor  and  author  and  to  demand  a  little  homage  for  the 
lonely  manager. 

Sheila  said  to  Pennock:  "I'm  going  to  run  away  to  some 
nice  quiet  madhouse  and  ask  for  a  padded  cell  and  iron 
bars.  I  want  to  go  before  they  take  me.  If  I  don't  I'll 
commit  murder  or  suicide.  These  men !  these  men !  these 
infernal  men!  Why  don't  they  let  me  alone?" 

All  Pennock  could  say  was:  "There,  there,  there, 
you  poor  child!  Let  me  put  a  cold  cloth  on  your 
head." 

"If  you  could  pour  cold  water  on  the  men  I'd  be  all 
right,"  Sheila  would  groan.  She  had  hysterics  regularly 
every  night  when  she  got  to  her  room.  She  would  scream 
and  pull  her  hair  and  stamp  her  feet  and  wail:  "I  vow 
I'll  never  act  again.  Or  if  I  do,  I'll  never  marry;  or  if 
I  marry,  I'll  marry  somebody  that  never  heard  of  the 
stage.  I'll  marry  a  Methodist  preacher.  They  don't  be 
lieve  in  the  theater,  and  neither  do  I!" 

Thus  Sheila  stormed  against  the  men.  But  her  very 
excitement  showed  that  love  was  becoming  an  imperious 
need.  She  was  growing  up  to  her  mating-time.  Just 
now  she  was  like  a  bird  surrounded  by  suitors,  and  they 
were  putting  on  their  Sunday  feathers  for  her,  trilling 
their  best,  and  fighting  each  other  for  her  possession. 
She  was  the  mistress  of  the  selection,  coy,  unconvinced, 
and  in  a  runaway  humor. 

Three  men  had .  made  ardent  love  to  her,  and  her  heart 
had  slain  them  each  in  turn.  She  was  a  veritable  Countess 

162 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

of  Monte  Cristo.     She  had  scored  off  "One!"  "Two!"  and 
"Three!" 

This  left  her  with  nothing  to  wed  but  her  career. 
And  she  was  disgusted  with  that. 

Only  her  long  training  and  her  tremendous  resources  of 
endurance  could  have  carried  her  through  that  multiplex 
exhaustion  of  every  emotion. 

Numbers  of  soldiers  desert  the  firing-line  in  almost 
every  battle.  Occasional  firemen  refrain  from  dashing 
into  burning  and  collapsing  buildings.  Policemen  some 
times  feel  themselves  outnumbered  beyond  resistance. 
But  actors  do  not  abstain  from  first-night  performances. 
Even  a  death-certificate  is  hardly  excuse  enough  for  that 
treachery. 

So  on  the  appointed  night  Sheila  played  the  part  that 
Vickery  wrote  for  her,  and  played  it  brilliantly.  She 
stepped  on  the  stage  as  from  a  bandbox  and  she  flitted 
from  scene  to  scene  with  the  volatility  of  a  humming-bird. 

Eldon  covered  himself  with  glory  and  lent  her  every 
support.  The  kiln-dried  company  danced  through  the  other 
roles  with  vivacity  and  the  freshness  of  debutancy.  They 
had  had  the  unusual  privilege  of  a  Monday  afternoon  off. 

The  big  face  of  the  audience  that  night  glistened  with 
joy  and  perspiration,  and  found  the  energy  somewhere  to 
demand  a  speech  from  the  author  and  another  from 
Sheila. 

Vickery  was  in  the  seventh  heaven.  If  there  were  an 
eighth  it  would  belong  to  playwrights  who  see  the  chaos 
of  their  manuscripts  changed  into  men  and  women  ap 
plauded  by  a  multitude.  Vickery  could  not  believe  the 
first  howl  of  laughter  from  the  many-headed,  one-mooded 
beast.  The  second  long  roll  of  delight  rendered  him  to  the 
clouds.  He  went  up  higher  on  the  next,  and  when  a 
meek  little  witticism  of  his  was  received  with  an  earth 
quake  of  joy,  followed  by  a  salvo  of  applause,  he  hardly 
recognized  the  moon  as  he  shot  past  it. 

163 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Later,  there  were  moments  of  tautness  and  hush  when 
the  audience  sat  on  the  edge  of  its  seats  and  held  its  breath 
with  excitement.  That  was  heroic  bliss.  But  when  from 
his  coign  of  espionage  in  the  back  of  a  box  he  saw  tears 
glistening  on  the  eyes  of  pretty  girls,  and  old  women  with 
handkerchiefs  at  their  wet  cheeks,  and  hard-faced  business 
men  sneaking  their  thumbs  past  their  dripping  lashes,  the 
ecstasy  was  divine.  When  the  tension  was  relaxed  and 
the  audience  blew  its  great  nose  he  thought  he  heard  the 
music  of  the  spheres. 

The  play  was  almost  an  hour  too  long,  but  the  audience 
risked  the  last  street-cars  and  stuck  to  its  post  till  the 
delightful  end.  Then  it  lingered  to  applaud  the  curtain 
up  three  times.  As  the  amiable  mob  squeezed  out,  Vick- 
ery  wound  his  way  among  it,  eavesdropping  like  a  spy, 
and  hearing  nothing  but  good  of  his  work  and  of  its 
performers. 

As  soon  as  he  could  he  worked  his  way  free  and  darted 
back  to  the  stage.  There  he  found  Sheila  standing  and 
crying  her  heart  out  with  laughter,  while  Eldon  held  one 
hand  and  Reben  the  other. 

Vickery  thrust  in  between  them,  caught  her  hands  away 
from  theirs,  and  gathered  her  into  his  arms.  And  kissed 
her.  Both  were  laughing  and  both  were  crying.  It  was 
a  very  salty  kiss,  but  he  found  it  wonderful. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

WERE  it  not  for  hours  like  these,  the  hope  of  them 
or  the  memory  of  them,  few  people  would  con 
tinue  to  trudge  the  dolorous  road  of  the  playwright. 
Such  hours  come  rarely  and  they  do  not  linger  unspoiled, 
but  they  are  glimpses  of  heaven  while  they  last.  It  was 
not  for  long  that  Vickery  and  Sheila  were  left  seated  upon 
the  sunny  side  of  Saturn  with  the  rings  of  unearthly 
glory  swirling  round  them. 

Their  return  to  earth  was  all  the  more  jolting  for  the 
distance  they  had  to  fall. 

Sheila  saw  Eldon  turn  away  in  a  sudden  rancor  of 
jealousy.  She  saw  Reben  turn  swart  with  rage.  His 
cruel  mouth  twisted  into  a  sneer,  and  when  Vickery 
turned  to  him  with  the  gratitude  of  a  child  to  a  rescuing 
angel  Reben's  comments  wiped  the  smile  off  Vickery's  rosy 
face  and  left  it  white  and  sick. 

Sheila  suffered  all  her  own  shocks  and  vicariously  those 
of  each  of  the  three  she  had  embroiled.  She  suffered  most 
for  the  young  creator  who  had  seen  that  his  work  was 
good  but  must  yet  hear  Satan's  critique.  And  Reben 
looked  like  a  wise  and  haughty  Lucifer  when  in  answer 
to  Vickery's  appealing  "Well?"  he  said: 

"Well,  you  certainly  got  over — here.  They  like  it. 
No  doubt  of  that.  But  they  liked  'The  Nautilus.'  It 
broke  all  records  here  in  Clinton  and  lasted  two  nights 
in  New  York. 

"You  mustn't  let  'em  fool  you,  my  boy.  This  stock 
company  is  a  kind  of  religion  to  these  yokels.  They  snap 
up  whatever  you  throw  'em  the  way  a  sea-lion  snaps  up  a 

165 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

fish.  Anything  on  God's  earth  will  go  here.  Just  copper 
your  bets  all  round.  Whatever  went  here  will  flop  in 
New  York,  and  vice  versa.  Did  you  hear  'em  howl  at 
that  old  wheeze  in  the  first  act?  Broadway  would  throw 
the  seats  at  you  if  you  sprung  it.  The  one  scene  that 
fell  flat  to-night  is  the  one  scene  worth  keeping  in. 

"You've  got  a  lot  of  work  to  do.  You'd  better  let  me 
bring  Ledley  or  somebody  down  here  to  whip  it  into  shape. 
As  it  stands,  I  don't  see  how  I  can  use  it.  Look  me  up 
next  time  you're  in  town — if  you  can  bring  me  some  new 
ideas." 

Then  he  turned  to  Sheila  and,  taking  her  by  that  dan 
gerous  elbow,  led  her  aside  and  murdered  her  joy.  He 
was  perfectly  sincere  about  his  distrust  of  the  piece.  He 
had  seen  so  many  false  hopes  come  up  like  violets  in  the 
snow,  only  to  wither  at  the  first  sharp  weather. 

He  answered  Sheila's  defiant  "Say  it"  with  another  icy 
blast: 

"You  poor  child!"  he  said.  "You  were  awful.  I  want 
you  to  close  with  this  stock  company  and  take  a  good  rest. 
You're  all  frayed  out.  You  looked  a  hundred  years  old 
and  you  played  like  a  hack-horse.  That  man  Eldon  was 
the  only  one  of  you  who  played  up  to  form.  He's  a  dis 
covery.  Now  I'm  going  back  to  town  to  see  if  I  can  get 
a  real  play  for  you,  and  you  run  along  home  to  your  papa 
and  mamma  and  see  if  you  can't  get  back  your  youth. 
But  don't  be  discouraged."  Having  absolutely  crushed 
her,  he  told  her  not  to  be  discouraged. 

When  he  had  pointed  out  that  the  laurel  crowns  were 
really  composed  of  poison  ivy  he  waved  a  cheerful  good-by 
and  hurried  off  to  catch  the  midnight  train  to  New  York. 

Sheila  turned  the  eyes  of  utter  wretchedness  upon 
Vickery,  in  whose  face  was  the  look  of  a  stricken  stag. 
They  had  planned  to  take  supper  together,  but  she 
begged  off.  She  felt  that  it  was  kinder. 

Besides,  Vickery  would  have  to  work  all  night.  The 

166 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

stage  director  had  told  him  that  he  must  cut  at  least  an 
hour  out  of  the  manuscript  before  the  special  rehearsal 
next  morning.  And  the  cuts  must  be  made  in  chunks 
because  the  company  had  to  begin  rehearsals  at  once  of 
the  next  week's  bill,  an  elaborate  production  of  one  of 
Mr.  Cohan's  farces,  in  his  earlier  manner. 

As  Sheila  left  the  stage  she  met  Eldon  staring  at  her 
hungrily.  Reben  had  not  spoken  to  him.  Sheila  had 
to  tell  him  that  the  manager's  only  praise  was  for  him. 
But  he  could  get  no  pleasure  from  the  bouquet  because 
it  included  rue  for  Sheila: 

"He's  a  liar.     You  were  magnificent!"  Eldon  cried. 

"Thank  you,  Floyd,"  she  sighed,  and,  smiling  at  grief 
like  Patience,  shook  her  head  sadly  and  went  to  her  dress 
ing-room.  She  was  almost  too  bankrupt  of  strength  to 
take  off  her  make-up.  She  worked  drearily  and  smearily 
in  disgust,  leaving  patches  of  color  here  and  there.  Then 
she  slipped  into  a  mackintosh  and  stumbled  to  the  wait 
ing  carriage. 

When  she  got  to  her  room  she  let  Pennock  take  off  the 
mackintosh  and  her  shoes  and  stockings;  she  was  asleep 
almost  before  she  finished  whimpering  her  only  prayer: 

"O  God,  help  me  to  quit  the  stage — forever.    Amen!" 

Pennock  stared  at  her  dismally  and  saw  that  even  her 
slumber  was  shaken  with  little  sobs. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

OHEILA  was  late  at  the  rehearsal  the  next  morning, 
O  and  so  dejected  that  she  hardly  felt  regret  at  hearing 
Vickery  tell  her  how  many  of  her  favorite  scenes  had  to 
be  omitted  because  they  were  not  essential.  Vickery  held 
command  of  the  company  with  the  plucky  misery  of  a 
Napoleon  retreating  from  his  Moscow. 

When  this  rehearsal  was  over  the  director  told  Sheila 
that  she  need  not  stay  to  rehearse  the  next  week's  bill,  since 
Reben  had  asked  him  to  release  her  from  further  work. 
He  had  telegraphed  to  New  York  for  a  woman  who  had 
played  the  same  part  with  great  success,  and  received 
answer  that  she  would  be  able  to  step  in  without  incon 
venience.  Sheila  was  dolefully  relieved.  She  felt  that 
she  could  never  have  learned  another  r61e.  She  felt 
almost  grateful  to  Reben.  "My  brain  has  stopped,"  she 
told  Pennock;  "just  stopped." 

The  Tuesday  afternoon  matinee  was  always  the  worst 
of  the  week.  The  heat  was  like  a  persecution.  The 
actors  played  havoc  with  cues  and  lines,  and  the  suf 
focated  audience  was  too  indifferent  to  know  or  care. 

After  the  performance  Vickery  was  so  lost  to  hope  that 
he  grew  sardonic.  He  said  with  a  tormented  smile: 

"It's  a  pity  Reben  didn't  stay  over.  If  he  had  seen 
how  badly  this  performance  went  he  would  have  sworn 
that  the  play  would  run  a  year  on  his  dear  damned 
Broadway.  I'm  going  to  telegraph  him  so." 

Tuesday  night  the  house  was  again  poor,  though  better 
than  at  the  matine'e.  The  company  settled  down  into 
harness  like  draught-horses  beginning  a  long  pull.  The 

1 68 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

laughter  was  feeble  and  not  focused.  It  was  indeed  so 
scattered  that  the  voice  of  one  man  was  audible  above  the 
rest. 

Out  of  the  silences  or  the  low  murmurs  of  laughter  re 
sounded  the  gigantic  roars  of  this  single  voice.  People  in 
the  audience  twisted  about  to  see  who  it  was.  The  people 
on  the  stage  were  confused  at  first,  and  later  amused. 
They  also  made  more  or  less  concealed  efforts  to  place  the 
fellow. 

By  and  by  the  audience  began  to  catch  the  contagion 
of  his  mirth.  It  laughed  first  at  his  laughter,  and  then 
at  the  play.  During  the  third  act  the  piece  was  going 
so  well  that  it  was  impossible  to  pick  out  any  individual 
noise. 

After  the  last  curtain  a  number  of  townspeople  went 
back  on  the  stage  to  tell  Sheila  how  much  they  liked  the 
play,  and  especially  her  work.  They  had  read  the  glowing 
criticisms  in  the  morning  and  evening  papers.  They  had 
not  heard  what  Reben  had  said  of  what  Broadway  would 
say.  They  would  not  have  cared.  Broadway  was  sus 
pect  in  Clinton. 

These  bouquets  had  the  savor  of  artificial  flowers  to 
Sheila,  but  she  enacted  the  role  of  gratitude  to  the  best  of 
her  ability.  Back  of  the  knot  surrounding  her  she  saw 
Vickery  standing  with  a  towering  big  fellow  evidently 
waiting  to  be  presented.  Then  she  saw  Eldon  shaking 
hands  with  the  stranger. 

Bret  Winfield  was  suffering  from  stage-fright.  He  had 
met  Vickery  in  New  York  and  had  promised  to  run  down 
to  see  his  play,  and  incidentally  to  square  himself  with  the 
girl  he  had  frightened.  In  the  generally  disheveled  state 
of  brains  that  characterizes  a  playwright  during  rehearsal, 
Vickery  had  neglected  to  tell  Winfield  that  the  company 
contained  also  the  man  that  Winfield  had  vowed  to  square 
himself  with. 

When,  years  before  at  Leroy,  Eldon,  as  the  taxicab- 
driver,  had  floated  Winfield  over  the  footlights,  he  had 
12  i£g 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

worn  a  red  wig  and  disguising  make-up.  When  Winfield 
saw  him  on  the  stage  as  a  handsome  youth  perfectly 
groomed,  there  was  no  resemblance.  Eldon 's  name  was 
on  the  program,  but  Winfield  was  one  of  those  who  pay 
little  heed  to  programs,  prefaces,  and  title-pages.  He 
was  one  of  those  who  never  know  the  names  of  the  au 
thors,  actors,  composers,  printers,  and  architects  whose 
work  pleases  them.  They  "know  what  they  like,"  but 
they  never  know  who  made  it. 

As  he  waited  to  reach  Sheila,  Winfield  noted  Eldon 
standing  in  a  little  knot  of  admirers  of  his  own.  He  said 
to  Vickery,  with  that  elegance  of  diction  which  has 
always  distinguished  collegians: 

"That  lad  who  played  your  hero  is  a  great  little  actor, 
'Gene.  He's  right  there  all  the  time.  I'd  like  to  slip 
it  to  him." 

Vickery  absently  led  him  to  Eldon  and  introduced  the 
two,  swallowing  both  names.  The  two  powerful  hands 
met  in  a  warm  clutch  that  threatened  to  become  a  test 
of  grip.  Winfield  poured  out  his  homage: 

"You're  certainly  one  actor,  Mr. — er — er —  You've 
got  a  sad,  solemn  way  of  pulling  your  laughs  that  made 
me  make  a  fool  of  myself." 

"You're  very  kind  to  think  so,"  said  Eldon,  overjoyed 
to  get  such  praise  from  a  man  of  such  weight.  And  he 
crushed  Winfield's  fingers  with  a  power  that  enhanced  the 
layman's  respect  still  further.  Winfield  crushed  back 
with  all  his  might  as  he  repeated: 

"Yes,  sir.     You're  sure  some  comedian,  Mr. — Mr. — 

"Eldon,"  said  Eldon. 

Winfield's  grip  relaxed  so  unexpectedly  that  Eldon 
almost  cracked  a  bone  or  two  before  he  could  check  his 
muscles.  Winfield  turned  white  and  red  in  streaks  and 
said: 

"Eldon?    Your  name's  Eldon?" 

Eldon  nodded. 

"Are  you  the  Eldon  that  knocked  a  fellow  about  my 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

size  about  ten  yards  for  a  touch-down  across  the  foot 
lights  once?" 

Eldon  blushed  to  find  his  prowess  fame,  and  said: 
"Yes.  Once." 

"Well,  I'm  the  fellow,"  said  Winfield,  trying  to  call  his 
ancient  grudge  to  the  banquet.  "I've  been  looking  for 
you  ever  since.  I  promised  myself  the  pleasure  of  beating 
you  up." 

Eldon  laughed:  "Well,  here  I  am.  I've  been  ashamed 
of  it  for  a  long  time.  I  took  an  unfair  advantage  of 
you." 

' '  Advantage  nothing, ' '  said  Winfield.  ' '  I  ought  to  have 
been  on  my  guard." 

"Well,"  Eldon  suggested.  "  Suppose  I  stand  down  here 
on  the  apron  of  the  stage  and  let  you  have  a  whack  at  me. 
See  if  you  can  put  me  into  the  orchestra  chairs  farther  than 
I  put  you." 

Winfield  sighed.  "Hell!  I  can't  hit  you  now.  I've 
shaken  hands  with  you,  unbeknownst.  I  guess  it's  all  off. 
I  couldn't  slug  a  man  that  made  me  laugh  so  hard. 
Shake!" 

He  put  out  his  hand  and  the  enemies  gripped  a  truce. 
Winfield  was  laughing,  but  there  was  a  bitterness  in  his 
laugh.  He  had  been  struck  in  the  face  and  he  could  not 
requite  the  debt. 

Then  Vickery  called  him  to  where  Sheila,  having  rid 
herself  of  her  admirers,  was  making  ready  to  leave  the 
stage. 

"Miss  Kemble,  I  want  to  present  my  old  friend,  Mr. 
Bret  Winfield.  He's  been  dying  to  meet  you  again  for  a 
long  while." 

"Again?"  thought  Sheila,  but  she  said,  as  if  to  her  oldest 
friend:  "Oh,  I'm  delighted!  I  haven't  seen  you  since — 
since —  Chicago,  wasn't  it?" 

Vickery  laughed  and  explained :  ' '  Guess  again !  You've 
met  before,  but  you  were  never  introduced." 

171 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Slowly  Sheila  understood.  She  stared  up  at  Winfield 
and  cried,  "This  isn't  the  man  who — " 

"I'm  the  little  fellow,"  said  Winfield,  enfolding  her 
hand  in  a  clasp  like  a  boxing-glove.  "I  scared  you 
pretty  badly,  I'm  afraid.  But  Vickery  tells  me  he 
told  you  my  intentions  were  honorable.  I've  come 
to  apologize." 

"Oh,  please  don't !  I'm  the  one  that  ought  to.  I  made 
an  awful  idiot  of  myself;  but,  you  see,  I  was  afraid  you 
were  going  to — to — well,  kidnap  me." 

"I  wish  I  could  now!" 

"Kidnap  me?"  Sheila  gasped  with  a  startled  frown- 
smile,  drawing  her  brows  down  and  her  lips  up. 

He  lowered  his  high  head  and  his  low  voice  to  murmur, 
with  an  impudence  that  did  not  offend  her,  "You're  too 
darned  nice  to  waste  your  gifts  on  the  public." 

"Waste  them! — on  the  public?"  Sheila  mocked.  "And 
what  ought  I  to  do  with  them,  then?" 

He  spoke  very  earnestly.  "  Invest  them  in  a  nice  quiet 
borne.  You  oughtn't  to  be  slaving  away  like  this  to 
amuse  a  good-for-nothing  mob.  You  let  some  big  husky 
fellow  do  the  work  and  build  you  a  pretty  home.  Then 
you  just  stay  home  and — and — bloom  for  him — like  a 
rose  on  a  porch.  I  tell  you  if  I  had  you  I'd  lock  you  up 
where  the  crowds  couldn't  see  you." 

Sheila  put  back  her  head  and  laughed  at  the  utter 
ridiculousness  of  such  insolence.  Then  her  laugh  stopped 
short.  The  word  "home"  got  her  by  the  throat.  And 
the  words  "bloom  just  for  him"  brought  sudden  dew 
to  her  eyes. 

She  had  hurt  Winfield  by  her  laughter.  Under  the 
raillery  of  it  he  had  muttered  a  curt  "Good  night"  with 
out  heeding  her  sudden  softness. 

He  had  rejoined  Eldon  and  Vickery.  Of  the  three  tall 
men  he  was  the  least  gifted,  the  least  spiritual.  But  he 
was  the  only  one  of  the  three,  the  only  one  of  all  her  ad 
mirers,  who  had  not  urged  her  forward  on  this  weary  climb 

172 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

up  the  sun-beaten  hill.     He  was  the  only  one  who  had 
suggested  twilight  and  peace  and  home. 

At  any  other  time  his  counsel  would  have  wakened  her 
fiery  dissent.  Now  in  her  fatigue  and  her  loneliness  it 
soothed  her  like  the  occasional  uncanny  wisdom  of  a 
fool. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

r"PHAT  night  Sheila  went  to  bed  to  sleep  out  sleep. 
1  When  Pennock  asked,  on  leaving  her  arranged  for 
slumber,  "Will  you  be  called  at  the  usual  hour,  please?" 
Sheila  answered,  "I  won't  be  called  at  all,  please!" 

This  privilege  alone  was  like  a  title  of  gentility  to  a 
tired  laundress.  There  would  be  no  rehearsal  on  the 
morrow  for  her. 

The  other  galley-slaves  in  the  company  must  still  bend 
to  the  oar,  but  she  had  shore  leave  of  mornings,  and  after 
Saturday  she  was  free  altogether. 

Now  that  she  had  time  to  be  tired,  old  aches  and 
fatigues  whose  consideration  had  had  to  be  postponed 
came  thronging  upon  her,  till  she  wondered  how  she  had 
endured  the  toil.  Still  more  she  wondered  why. 

Then  she  wondered  nothing  at  all  for  a  good  many 
hours,  until  the  old  habit  of  being  called  awakened  her. 
She  glanced  at  her  watch,  saw  that  it  was  half  past  ten, 
and  flung  out  of  bed,  gasping,  "They'll  be  rehearsing  and 
I'm  not  there!" 

Then  she  remembered  her  liberty,  and  stood  feeling 
pleasantly  foolish.  The  joy  of  toppling  back  to  bed  was 
more  than  payment  for  the  fright  she  had  suffered.  It 
was  glorious  to  float  like  a  basking  swimmer  on  the  sur 
face  of  sleep,  with  little  ripples  of  unconsciousness  washing 
over  her  face  and  little  sunbeams  of  dream  between. 

In  the  half-awake  moods  she  reviewed  her  ambitions 
with  an  indolent  contempt.  That  man  Winfield's  words 
came  back  to  her.  After  all,  she  had  no  home  except  her 
father's  summer  cottage.  And  she  had  been  planning  no 

174 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

home  except  possibly  another  such  place  whither  she 
would  retire  in  the  late  spring  until  the  early  fall,  to  rest 
from  last  season's  hotels  and  recuperate  for  next  season's. 
Yes,  that  was  just  about  the  home  life  she  had  sketched 
out! 

It  occurred  to  her  now  that  her  plans  had  been  un- 
human  and  unwomanly.  ' '  A  woman's  place  is  the  home, " 
she  said.  It  was  not  an  original  thought,  but  it  came  to 
her  with  a  sudden  originality  as  sometimes  lines  she  had 
heard  or  had  spoken  dozens  of  times  abruptly  became  real. 

She  wanted  a  pretty  little  house  where  she  could  busy 
herself  with  pretty  little  tasks  while  her  big,  handsome 
husband  was  away  earning  a  pretty  little  provender  for 
both  of  them.  She  would  be  a  young  mother-bird  haunt 
ing  the  nest,  leaving  the  male  bird  to  forage  and  fight. 
That  was  the  life  desirable  and  appropriate.  Women 
were  not  made  to  work.  An  actress  was  an  abnormal 
creature. 

Sheila  did  not  realize  that  the  vast  majority  of  home- 
keeping  women  must  work  quite  as  hard  as  the  actress, 
with  no  vacations,  little  income,  and  less  applause.  The 
picture  of  the  husband  returning  laughing  to  his  eager 
spouse  was  a  decidedly  idealized  view  of  a  condition  more 
unfailing  in  literature  than  in  life.  Some  of  those  house 
wives  who  had  grown  tired  of  their  lot,  as  she  of  hers, 
would  have  told  her  that  most  husbands  return  home 
weary  and  discontented,  to  listen  with  small  interest 
to  their  weary  and  discontented  wives.  And  many 
husbands  go  out  again  soon  after  they  have  come  home 
again. 

Sheila  was  doing  what  the  average  person  does  in 
criticizing  the  stage  life — magnifying  its  faults  and  con 
trasting  it,  not  with  the  average  home,  but  with  an  ideal 
condition  not  often  to  be  found,  and  less  often  lasting 
when  found. 

Sheila  had  known  so  little  of  the  average  family  ex 
istence  that  she  imagined  it  according  to  the  romantic 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

formula,  "And  so  they  were  married  and  lived  happily 
ever  afterward."  She  thought  that  that  would  be  very 
nice.  And  she  lolled  at  her  ease,  weltering  in  visions  of 
cozy  domesticity  with  peace  and  a  hearth  and  a  noble 
American  citizen  and  the  right  number  of  perfectly  fasci 
nating  children  painlessly  borne  and  painlessly  borne  with. 

Anything,  anything  would  be  better  than  this  business 
of  rehearsing  and  rehearsing  and  squabbling  and  squab 
bling,  and  then  settling  down  into  a  dismal  repetition  of 
the  same  old  nonsense  in  the  same  old  theater  or  in  a 
succession  of  same  old  theaters. 

How  good  it  was,  just  not  to  have  to  learn  a  new  play 
for  next  week!  It  was  good  that  there  was  no  oppor 
tunity  to  rehearse  any  further  revisions  even  of  poor 
Vickery's  play.  There  was  almost  a  consolation  in  the 
thought  that  it  had  not  succeeded  with  Reben.  Perhaps 
Reben  would  be  a  long  while  discovering  a  substitute. 
Sheila  hoped  he  would  not  find  one  till  the  new  year. 
She  almost  hopecl  he  would  never  find  one. 

She  was  awfully  sorry  for  poor  Vickery.  He  had  suf 
fered  so  cruelly,  and  she  had  suffered  with  him.  Perhaps 
he  would  give  up  play-writing  now  and  take  up  some  less 
inhuman  trade.  To  think  that  she  had  once  dallied  with 
the  thought  of  marrying  him!  To  play  plays  was  bad 
enough,  but  to  be  the  wife  of  a  playwright — no,  thank 
you!  Better  be  the  gambler's  wife  of  a  less  laborious 
gambler  or  the  nurse  to  a  moody  lunatic  under  more 
restraint. 

Worse  yet,  Sheila  had  narrowly  escaped  falling  in  love 
with  an  actor!  They  would  have  been  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Traveling  Forever!  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Never  Rest!  To  live 
in  hotels  and  railroad  stations,  sleeping-car  berths,  and 
dressing-rooms  of  about  the  same  size;  to  put  on  a  lot 
of  sticky  stuff  and  go  out  and  parrot  a  few  lines,  then  to 
retire  and  grease  out  the  paint,  and  stroll  to  a  supper- 
room,  and  so  to  bed.  To  make  an  ambition  of  that! 
No,  thank  you!  Not  on  your  famais  de  la,  vie,  never! 

176 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

And  thus  having  with  a  drowsy  royalty  effaced  all  her 
plans  from  her  books,  she  burned  her  books.  Desdemona's 
occupation  was  gone.  She  might  as  well  get  up.  She 
bathed  and  dressed  and  breakfasted  with  splendid  de 
liberation,  and  then,  the  day  proving  to  be  fine  and 
sunny  and  cool  when  she  raised  her  tardy  curtains,  she  de 
cided  to  go  forth  for  a  walk,  the  dignified  saunter  of  a  lady, 
and  not  the  mad  rush  of  a  belated  actress.  It  wanted 
yet  an  hour  before  she  must  make  up  for  the  matinee. 

She  had  not  walked  long  when  she  heard  her  name 
called  from  a  motor-car  checked  at  the  curb.  She  turned 
to  see  Eugene  Vickery  waving  his  cap  at  her.  Bret 
Winfield,  at  the  wheel,  was  bowing  bareheaded.  They 
invited  her  to  go  with  them  for  a  ride.  It  struck  her  as  a 
providential  provision  of  just  what  she  would  have  wished 
for  if  she  had  thought  of  it. 

Vickery  stepped  down  to  open  the  door  for  her,  and, 
helping  her  in,  stepped  in  after  her.  Winfield  reached 
back  his  hand  to  clasp  hers,  and  Vickery  said: 

"Drive  us  about  a  bit,  chauffeur." 

"Yes,  sir!"  said  Winfield,  touching  his  cap.  And  he 
lifted  the  car  to  a  lively  gait. 

"Where  did  you  get  the  machine?"  said  Sheila. 

"It's  his — Bret's — Mr.  Winfield's,"  said  Vickery.  "He 
came  down  in  it — to  see  that  infernal  play  of  mine.  Do 
you  know,  I  think  I've  discovered  one  thing  that's  the 
matter  with  it.  In  that  scene  in  the  first  act,  you  know, 
where — " 

He  rambled  on  with  intense  enthusiasm,  but  Sheila  was 
thinking  of  the  man  at  the  wheel.  He  was  rich  enough 
to  own  a  car  and  clever  enough  to  run  it.  As  she  watched 
he  guided  it  through  a  swarm  of  traffic  with  skill  and 
coolness. 

Now  and  then  Winfield  threw  a  few  words  over  his  left 
shoulder.  They  had  nothing  to  do  with  things  theatrical 
— just  commonplace  high  spirits  on  a  fine  day.  Sheila  did 
like  him  ever  so  much. 

177 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

By  and  by  he  drew  up  to  the  curb  and  got  down,  mo 
tioning  to  Vickery  with  the  thumb  of  authority.  "I'm 
tired  of  letting  you  monopolize  Miss  Kemble,  'Gene. 
I'm  going  to  ask  her  to  sit  up  with  me." 

"But  I'm  telling  her  about  my  play,"  said  Vickery. 
"Now,  in  the  middle  of  the  last  act — ' 

"If  you  don't  mind,"  said  Sheila,  "I  should  like  to 
ride  awhile  with  Mr.  Winfield.  The  air's  better." 

Winfield  opened  the  door  for  her,  helped  her  down  and 
in  again,  and  resumed  his  place. 

"See  how  much  better  the  car  runs!"  he  said. 

And  to  Sheila  it  seemed  that  it  did  run  better.  Their 
chatter  ran  about  as  importantly  as  the  engines,  but  it 
was  cheerful  and  brisk. 

Every  man  has  his  ailment,  at  least  one.  The  only 
flaw  in  Winfield's  powerful  make-up  was  the  astigmatism 
that  compelled  him  to  wear  glasses.  Sheila  rather  liked 
them.  They  gave  an  intellectual  touch  to  a  face  that 
had  no  other  of  the  sort.  Besides,  actor-people  usually 
prefer  a  touch  of  what  they  call  "character"  to  what 
they  call  "a  straight." 

Winfield  told  Sheila  that  his  glasses  had  kept  him  from 
playing  football,  but  had  not  hampered  his  work  in  the 
Varsity  crew.  He  could  see  as  far  as  the  spinal  column 
of  the  oarsman  in  front  of  him,  and  that  was  all  he  was  sup 
posed  to  see  once  the  race  began. 

He  explained  that  his  glasses  had  fallen  from  his 
eyes  when  he  stepped  on  the  stage  at  Leroy.  That 
had  been  one  reason  why  Eldon  had  got  home  on  him 
so  easily. 

Evidently  this  unpaid  account  was  still  troubling  him. 

"I  hate  to  owe  a  man  a  dollar  or  a  kindness  or  a 
blow,"  he  said.  "I've  lost  my  chance  to  pay  that  man 
Eldon  what  was  due,  and  I'll  never  get  another  chance. 
Our  paths  will  never  cross  again,  I'm  afraid. 

"I  hope  not!"  Sheila  cried. 

"Why?" 

178 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"Because  you're  both  such  powerful  men.  He  was  a 
football-player,  you  know." 

"Oh,  was  he?" 

"Oh  yes.  And  he  keeps  himself  in  trim.  Most  actors 
do.  They  never  know  when  they'll  have  to  appear  bare- 
armed.  And  then  they  meet  such  awful  people  some 
times." 

"  Oh,  do  they?     And  you  think  he  would  whip  me,  eh?" 

"Oh  no.  I  don't  think  either  of  you  could  whip  the 
other.  But  it  would  be  terrible  to  have  either  of  you 
hurt  either  of  you." 

Winfield  laughed,  but  all  he  said  was,  "You're  a  mighty 
nice  girl." 

She  laughed,  "Thanks." 

Then  both  looked  about  guiltily  to  see  if  Vickery  were 
listening.  Nothing  important  had  been  said,  but  their 
hearts  had  been  fencing,  or  at  least  feinting,  at  a  sort  of 
flirtation. 

Vickery  was  gone. 

"For  Heaven's  sake!"  said  Sheila. 

"He  probably  dropped  out  when  we  stopped  some 
time  ago  to  let  that  wagon  pass." 

"I  wonder  why?"  Sheila  said,  anxiously. 

"Oh,"  Winfield  laughed,  '"Gene's  such  an  omni — om — 
he  reads  so  much  he's  probably  read  that  two's  company 
and  three's  a  crowd." 

This  was  a  trifle  uncomfortable  for  Sheila,  so  she  said, 
"What  time  is  it,  please?" 

"Half  past  one,  or  worse,"  said  Winfield,  pointing  with 
his  toe  to  the  auto-clock.  "That's  usually  slow." 

"Good  Lord!  I  ought  to  be  in  the  shop  this  minute. 
Turn  round  and  fly!" 

They  were  far  out  in  the  country.  Winfield  looked  re 
gretfully  at  the  vista  ahead.  Turning  round  in  a  narrow 
road  was  a  slow  and  maddening  process,  and  Sheila's 
nerves  grated  like  the  clutch.  Once  faced  townward, 
they  sped  ferociously.  She  doubted  if  she  would  ever 

179 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

arrive  alive.  There  were  swoops  and  skids  and  flights 
of  chickens  and  narrow  escapes  from  the  murder  of  dogs 
who  charged  ferociously  and  vanished  in  a  diminuendo  of 
yelps. 

There  followed  an  exciting  race  with  the  voice  of  a 
motor-cycle  coming  up  from  the  rear.  Winfield  laughed 
it  to  scorn  until  Sheila,  glancing  back,  saw  that  it  carried 
a  policeman. 

"He's  waving  to  us.     Stop!" 

"  If  I  do  we'll  never  make  it.  I'll  put  you  in  the  theater 
on  time  if  I  go  to  jail  for  life." 

"No,  no;  I  won't  get  you  into  trouble.  Please  stop. 
He  looks  like  a  nice  policeman.  I'll  tell  him  you're  a 
doctor  and  I'm  a  trained  nurse." 

Winfield  slowed  down,  and  the  policeman  came  up, 
sputtering  like  his  own  blunderbuss.  Sheila  tried  to  look 
like  a  trained  nurse,  but  missed  the  costume  and  the 
make-up.  She  began  at  once : 

"Oh,  please,  Mr.  Officer,  it's  all  my  fault.  You  see, 
the  doctor  has  a  dying  patient,  and  I — I— 

"Why,  it's  Sheila  Ke —  Miss  Kemble!  Ain't  you 
playin'  this  afternoon?" 

"Oh  yes,  it's  me — and  I  ought  to  be,  but  I  was  detained, 
and  that's  why — " 

"Well,  you  better  hurry  up  or  you'll  keep  folks  waitin'. 
My  wife's  there  this  afternoon.  I  seen  you  myself  last 
night." 

"Did  you?    Oh,  thank  you  so  much!    Good-by!" 

As  Winfield's  car  slid  forward  they  heard  the  police 
man's  voice:  "Better  go  kind  o'  slow  crossing  Fifth 
Street.  McGonigle  is  stricter  'n  I  am." 

Winfield  was  greatly  impressed  by  the  fame  of  his 
passenger.  He  carried  Calphurnia;  no  harm  could  come 
to  him.  They  crossed  Fifth  Street  at  such  a  pace  that  the 
car-tracks  sent  Sheila  aloft.  As  she  came  down  she  re 
membered  Officer  McGonigle.  She  saw  that  he  or  a 
vague  film  of  him  was  saluting  her  with  admiring  awe. 

1 80 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

The  grinding  toil  of  the  stock  actress  has  its  perquisites, 
after  all. 

She  made  Winfield  let  her  out  at  the  alley  and  ran  with 
all  her  might.  Once  more  she  was  met  at  the  stage  door 
by  the  anxious  Eldon.  But  now  she  resented  his  pres 
ence.  His  solicitude  resembled  espionage.  But  it  was 
not  he  that  had  changed. 

Pennock  was  in  a  furious  mood  and  scolded  Sheila 
roundly  when  she  helped  her  into  her  costume  at  a  speed 
a  fireman  would  have  envied.  As  she  made  up  her  face 
while  Pennock  concocted  her  hair,  Sheila  was  studying 
some  new  lines  that  Vickery  had  determined  to  try  out 
that  afternoon. 

The  performance  went  excellently  well.  Sheila  was 
refreshed  by  her  sleep  and  the  forced  ventilation  her  soul 
had  had.  She  dined  with  Vickery  and  Winfield.  Vickery 
was  aflame  with  new  ideas  that  had  come  to  him  in  Win- 
field's  car.  He  had  dropped  out,  not  to  leave  them 
alone,  but  to  be  alone  with  his  precious  thoughts. 

Sheila's  ambitions,  however,  were  asleep.  She  was 
more  interested  in  the  silent  admiration  of  Winfield. 
The  light  on  his  glasses  kept  her  from  seeing  his  eyes,  but 
she  felt  that  they  were  soft  upon  her,  because  his  voice 
was  gentle  when  he  spoke  the  few  words  he  said. 

It  irritated  Sheila  to  have  to  hurry  back  to  the  theater 
after  dinner  to  repeat  again  the  afternoon's  repetition. 
The  moon  seemed  to  call  down  the  alley  to  her  not  to 
give  herself  to  the  garish  ache  of  the  calcium;  and  the 
breeze  had  fingers  twitching  at  her  clothes  and  a  voice 
that  sang,  "Come  walk  with  me." 

She  played  the  play,  but  it  irked  her.  When  she  left 
the  theater  at  half  past  eleven  she  found  Winfield  waiting, 
in  his  car.  Vickery  was  walking  at  her  side,  jabbering 
about  his  eternal  revisions.  Winfield  offered  to  carry 
them  to  their  hotels.  He  saw  to  it  that  he  reached  Vick- 
ery's  first.  When  they  had  dropped  Jonah  overboard 

181 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Winfield  asked  Sheila  to  take  just  a  bit  of  the  air  for  her 
health's  sake. 

She  hesitated  only  a  moment.  The  need  of  a  chaperon 
hardly  occurred  to  her.  She  had  been  living  a  life  of  in 
dependence  for  months.  She  had  no  fear  of  Winfield  or 
of  anybody.  Had  she  not  overpowered  the  ferocious 
Reben?  She  consented — for  the  sake  of  her  health. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

'""THERE  will  always  be  two  schools  of  preventive 
1  hygiene  for  women.  One  would  protect  girls  from 
themselves  and  their  suitors  by  high  walls,  ignorance, 
seclusion,  and  a  guardian  in  attendance  at  every  step. 
The  other  would  protect  them  by  encouraging  high  ideals 
through  knowledge,  self-respect,  liberty,  and  industry. 

Neither  school  ever  succeeded  altogether,  or  ever  will. 
The  fault  of  the  former  is  that  what  is  forbidden  becomes 
desirable;  high  walls  are  scalable,  ignorance  dangerous, 
seclusion  impossible,  and  guardians  either  corruptible  or 
careless. 

The  fault  of  the  latter  is  that  emotions  alter  ideals  and 
subdue  them  to  their  own  color;  that  knowledge  increases 
curiosity,  self-respect  may  be  overpowered  or  undermined, 
and  that  liberty  enlarges  opportunity. 

It  always  comes  back  to  the  individual  occasion  and 
the  individual  soul  in  conflict  with  it.  There  has  been 
much  viciousness  in  harems  and  in  more  sacred  inclo- 
sures.  And  there  has  been  much  virtue  in  dual  soli 
tudes.  Liberty  is  not  salvation,  but  at  least  it  encourages 
intelligence,  it  enforces  responsibility,  and  it  avoids  the 
infinite  evils  of  tyranny.  For  that  reason,  while  actresses 
and  other  women  are  not  always  so  good  as  they  might 
be,  they  are  not  often  so  bad  as  they  might  be. 

Sheila,  the  actress,  was  put  upon  her  mettle.  She  had 
no  duenna  to  play  tricks  upon.  She  had  herself  to  take 
care  of,  her  preciousness  to  waste  or  cherish.  Sometimes 
women  respond  to  these  encounters  with  singular  dignity: 
sometimes  with  singular  indifference. 

183 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

The  town  of  Clinton  was  almost  all  asleep.  The  very 
houses  seemed  tucked  up  in  sheeted  moonlight.  And  soon 
Sheila  and  her  cavalier — or  engineer — were  beyond  the 
point  where  the  streets  were  subtly  changed  to  roads. 
The  last  car  on  the  suburban  line  growled  and  glittered 
past,  lurching  noisily  on  its  squealing  rails.  And  then 
they  were  alone  under  the  moony  vastitude  of  sky,  with  the 
dream-drenched  earth  revolving  around  them  in  a  huge, 
slow  wheel. 

The  car  purred  with  the  contentment  of  a  great  house- 
cat  and  lapped  up  the  glimmering  road  like  a  stream  of 
milk. 

Sheila  felt  the  spirit  of  the  night,  and  felt  that  all  the 
universe  was  in  tender  rapport  with  itself.  She  felt  as 
never  before  the  grace  of  love,  the  desire,  the  need  of  love. 
For  years  she  had  been  exerting  herself  for  her  ambition, 
and  now  her  ambition  was  tired.  The  hour  of  womanhood 
was  striking,  almost  silently,  yet  as  unmistakably  as  the 
distant  town  clock  that  published  midnight,  so  far  away 
as  to  be  less  overheard  than  felt  in  the  slow  throb  of  the 
air. 

Bret  Winfield's  response  to  the  mood  of  the  night  was 
pagan.  Sheila  was  a  mighty  nice  girl  and  darned  pretty 
and  she  had  consented  to  take  a  midnight  spin  with  him. 
But  many  darned  pretty  girls  had  done  the  same.  A 
six-cylinder  motor-car  is  a  very  winsome  form  of  in 
vitation. 

In  place  of  inviting  a  young  man  to  a  cozy  corner  in  a 
parlor  or  a  hammock  on  a  piazza,  the  enterprising  maiden 
of  the  day  accepts  his  invitation — and  seats  herself  in  a 
flying  hammock.  Seclusion  is  secured  and  concealment 
attained  by  way  of  velocity. 

A  wonderful  change  had  taken  place  in  the  world  of 
lovers  in  the  last  ten  years.  For  thousands  of  years  be 
fore — ever  since,  indeed,  the  first  man  invented  the  taming 
of  the  first  horse  and  took  his  cave-girl  buggy-riding  on  a 
pair  of  poles  or  in  a  square-wheeled  cart — lovers  had  been 

184 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

kept  to  about  the  same  pace.  Suddenly  they  were  given 
a  buggy  that  can  go  sixty  miles  an  hour  or  better;  so  fast, 
indeed,  that  it  is  veiled  in  its  own  speed  and  its  own  dust. 
Even  the  naughty  gods  and  the  goddesses  of  Homer  never 
knew  any  concealment  like  it. 

Winfield  was  an  average  young  man  who  had  known 
average  young  women  averagely  well.  He  had  found  that 
demoiselles  either  would  not  motor  with  him  at  all  or, 
motoring  with  him,  expected  to  be  paid  certain  gallant 
attentions.  He  always  tried  to  live  up  to  their  expecta 
tions.  They  might  struggle,  but  never  fiercely  enough 
to  endanger  the  steering-wheel.  They  might  protest,  but 
never  loudly  enough  to  drown  the  engine. 

Such  was  his  experience  with  the  laity.  Sheila  was 
his  first  actress,  not  including  a  few  encounters  with  those 
camp-followers  of  the  theater  who  are  only  accepted  as 
"actresses"  when  they  are  arrested,  and  who  have  as 
much  right  to  the  name  as  washwomen  for  a  convent 
have  the  right  to  be  called  "nuns,"  when  they  drink  too 
much. 

But  Winfield  had  reasoned  that  if  the  generality  of 
pretty  girls  who  motored  with  men  were  prepared  for 
dalliance,  by  so  much  more  would  an  actress  be.  Con- 
sequently,  when  he  reached  a  hilltop  where  there  was  a 
good  excuse  for  pausing  to  admire  the  view  of  a  moon- 
plated  river  laid  along  a  dark  valley,  he  shut  off  the  power 
and  slid  his  left  arm  back  of  Sheila. 

She  sat  forward  promptly  and  his  heart  began  to  chug. 

Making  love  is  an  old  and  foolish  game,  but  strangely 
exciting  at  the  time.  Winfield  was  more  afraid  to  with 
draw  his  arm  than  to  complete  the  embrace. 

Sheila's  heart  was  spinning,  too.  She  had  thrilled  to 
the  love-croon  of  the  night.  The  landscape  before  her 
and  beneath  her  seemed  to  be  filled  with  dreams.  But 
she  was  in  love  with  love  and  not  with  Bret  Winfield. 

When  she  recognized  that  he  was  about  to  begin  to 
initiate  her  by  a  familiar  form  of  amorous  hazing  into  the 
13  185 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

ancient  society  whose  emblem  is  a  spoon,  she  abruptly 
decided  that  she  did  not  want  to  belong.  Winfield  became 
abruptly  more  of  a  stranger  than  ever. 

Sheila  did  not  want  to  hate  this  nice  young  man.  She 
did  not  want  to  quarrel  with  her  chauffeur  so  far  from 
home  at  so  compromising  an  hour.  She  did  not  want  to 
wreck  the  heavenly  night  with  idiotic  combat.  She 
hated  the  insincerity  and  perfunctoriness  that  must  be  the 
effect  of  any  protest.  She  was  actress  enough  to  realize 
that  the  lines  the  situation  required  of  her  had  long  ago 
lost  their  effectiveness  and  their  very  sincerity. 

But  she  did  not  want  to  be  hugged.  She  loathed  the 
thought  of  being  touched  by  this  man's  arm.  She  felt 
herself  as  precious  and  her  body  as  holy  as  the  lofty  emo 
tion  of  the  night.  Still,  how  could  she  protest  till  he 
gave  her  cause?  He  gave  her  cause. 

Her  very  shoulder-blades  winced  as  she  felt  Winfield's 
arm  close  about  her;  she  shivered  as  his  big  hand  folded 
over  her  shoulder. 

Sheila  groped  for  appropriate  words.  Winfield's  big 
handsome  face  with  the  two  dim  lenses  over  his  eyes  was 
brought  nearer  and  nearer  to  her  cheek.  Then,  without 
giving  him  even  the  help  of  resistance,  she  inquired,  quite 
casually : 

"Is  it  true  that  they  can  send  you  to  the  penitentiary 
if  you  hit  a  man  in  the  face  when  he's  wearing  glasses?" 

Sheila  was  as  astounded  as  Winfield  was  at  this  most 
unexpected  query.  His  lips  paused  at  her  very  cheek  to 
stammer : 

"I  don't  know.     But  why?     What  about  it?" 

"Because  if  it  is  true  I  want  you  either  to  take  your 
arm  away  or  take  your  glasses  off." 

"I  don't  understand." 

"You  don't  have  to.  All  you  have  to  understand  is 
that  I  don't  want  your  arm  around  me.  I'd  rather  go  to 
the  penitentiary  than  have  you  kiss  me." 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

"For  the  Lord's  sake!"  Winfield  gasped,  relaxing  his 
clutch. 

Sheila  went  on  with  that  sarcasm  which  is  cold  poison 
to  romance:  "I  don't  blame  you  for  attempting  it.  I 
know  it's  the  usual  thing  on  such  occasions.  But  I  don't 
like  it,  and  that  ought  to  be  enough." 

Winfield  sighed  with  shame  and  regret.  "It's  quite 
enough!  I  beg  your  pardon  very  humbly.  Shall  we 
turn  back  now?" 

"If  you  please." 

The  very  engine  seemed  to  groan  as  Winfield  started  it 
up  again.  It  clucked  reprovingly,  "  Ts !  ts!  ts!" 

Winfield  was  more  angry  than  sorry.  He  had  made  a 
fool  of  himself  and  she  had  made  another  fool  of  him.  He 
was  young  enough  to  grumble  a  little,  "Are  you  in  love 
with  that  man  Eldon?" 

"He's  very  nice." 

"You  love  him,  then?" 

"Not  at  all." 

"Well,  then,  if  you  keep  me  at  such  a  distance,  why  do 
you — how  can  you  let  him  put  his  arms  round  you  and 
kiss  you  twice  a  day  before  everybody?" 

"He  gets  paid  for  it,  and  so  do  I." 

"That  makes  it  worse." 

"You  think  so?  Well,  I  don't.  Actors  are  like  doc 
tors.  They  have  special  privileges  to  do  things  that 
would  be  very  wrong  for  other  people." 

Winfield  laughed  this  to  scorn.     Sheila  was  furious. 

"If  there  weren't  any  actors  there  wouldn't  be  any 
Shakespeare  or  any  of  the  great  plays.  Doctors  save 
people  from  death  and  disease.  Actors  save  millions 
from  melancholy  and  from  loneliness,  and  teach  them 
sympathy  and  understanding.  So  it  is  perfectly  proper 
for  an  actress  to  be  kissed  and  hugged  on  the  stage. 
Acting  is  the  noblest  profession  in  the  world,  the  humanest 
and  the  most  fascinating.  And  a  woman  can  do  just 
as  much  good  and  be  just  as  good  on  the  stage  as  she  can 

187 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

anywhere  else.  If  you  don't  think  so,  then  you  have  no 
right  to  speak  to  an  actress.  And  I  don't  want  you  to 
speak  to  me  again — ever!  for  you  come  with  an  insult 
in  your  heart.  You  despise  me  and  I  despise  you." 

Winfield  was  in  a  panic.  He  had  sought  this  girl  out 
to  square  himself  with  her,  and  he  had  wounded  her 
deeper  than  before. 

"Oh,  please,  Miss  Kemble,  I  beg  you!"  he  pleaded. 
"I  don't  blame  you  for  despising  me,  but  I  don't  despise 
you.  I  think  you  are  wonderful.  I'm  simply  crazy 
about  you.  I  never  saw  a  girl  I — I  liked  so  much.  I 
didn't  mean  anything  wrong,  and  I  wouldn't  hurt  you  for 
the  world.  I  just  thought — 

Sheila  felt  a  little  relentment.  "I  know  what  you 
thought,  and  I  suppose  I  oughtn't  to  blame  you.  Ac 
tresses  ought  to  get  used  to  being  misunderstood,  just 
as  trained  nurses  are.  But  I  hoped  you  were  different. 
I  know  I  am.  I've  had  so  much  stage  loving  that  it 
doesn't  mean  anything  to  me.  When  I  get  the  real  I 
want  it  to  be  twice  as  real  as  it  would  have  to  be  for 
anybody  else.  Just  because  I  pretend  so  much  I'd  have 
to  be  awfully  in  love  to  love  at  all." 

"Haven't  you  ever  loved  anybody?"  Winfield  asked, 
quite  inanely. 

She  shook  her  head  and  answered,  with  a  foolish  solem 
nity.  "I  thought  I  was  going  to,  once  or  twice,  but  I 
never  did." 

"That's  just  like  me.  I've  never  really  loved  anybody, 
either." 

There  was  such  unqualified  juvenility  in  their  words 
that  they  recognized  it  themselves.  Sheila  could  not  help 
laughing.  He  laughed,  too,  like  a  cub. 

Then  Sheila  said,  with  the  earnestness  of  a  child  play 
ing  doll's  house:  "You're  too  young  to  love  anybody, 
and  I  haven't  time  yet.  I've  got  much  too  much  work 
ahead  of  me  to  waste  any  time  on  love." 

"I've  got  a  lot  of  work  ahead  of  me,  too,"  said  Winfield. 

188 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"You  have?"  said  Sheila.  "What  is  your  work — 
doctor,  lawyer,  merchant,  chief?" 

She  was  surprised  to  realize  that  she  had  come  to  know 
this  man  pretty  well  before  she  knew  anything  at  all  about 
him.  She  was  discussing  Winfield's  future  before  she 
had  heard  of  his  past.  Vickery's  introduction  had  been 
his  only  credentials,  his  only  history.  And  yet  she  had 
already  rested  briefly  in  his  arms.  She  was  surprised 
further  when  he  said : 

"I'm  a —  That  is,  my  father  is —  We  are  Winfield's 
Scales." 

She  took  this  so  blankly  that  he  gasped,  "Good  heavens ! 
didn't  you  ever  hear  of  Winfield's  Scales?" 

"I  never  did,"  said  Sheila. 

"I'll  bet  you  were  weighed  in  one  of  'em  when  you  were 
born." 

"I  couldn't  read  when  I  was  born,"  said  Sheila. 

"And  you've  never  heard  of  them  since?" 

"Not  to  my  knowledge." 

Winfield  shook  his  head  amiably  over  her  childlike 
ignorance.  But  then,  what  information  could  one  expect 
of  theatrical  people?  He  went  on: 

"Well,  anyway,  my  father  is  one  of  the  biggest  manu 
facturers  of  scales  and  weighing-machines  and  such  things 
that  there  is.  He's  about  the  only  independent  one  left 
out  of  the  trust.  Haven't  you  heard  of  the  tremendous 
fight  we've  been  put  ting,  up?" 

Sheila  was  less  interested  in  the  war  than  in  the  soldier. 

"We?"  she  said. 

"Well,  I'm  not  in  the  firm  yet,  but  my  father  expects 
me  to  step  in  right  away,  so  that  he  can  step  out.  He's 
not  very  well.  That  makes  him  rather  cranky.  He 
didn't  want  me  to  come  down  here,  but  I  wanted  to  see 
Vickery's  play  and  square  myself  with  you.  And  I've 
made  a  mess  of  that." 

"Oh  no!  we're  square  now,  I  fancy,"  said  Sheila. 

"Then  I  ought  to  be  at  home,"  he  sighed. 

189 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"Instead  of  sowing  wild  oats  with  actresses,"  said 
Sheila. 

"These  oats  are  not  very  wild,"  Winfield  grumbled,  not 
quite  cured  of  regret. 

"Rather  tame,  eh?"  Sheila  laughed.  "Well,  you'll  find 
that  most  actresses  are.  We're  such  harness-broken, 
heart-broken  hacks,  most  of  us,  there's  not  much  excite 
ment  left  in  us.  So  you're  to  be  a  scale  manufacturer. 
You're  awfully  rich,  I  suppose." 

"When  the  market's  good,  Dad  makes  a  pile  of  money. 
When  it's  bad — whew!  And  it's  expensive  fighting  the 
trust." 

"Is  it  anything  like  the  theatrical  trust?" 

"  Is  there  a  theatrical  trust?" 

"Good  heavens!    Haven't  you  read  about  the  war?" 

"Was  there  a  war?" 

"For  years.     Millions  of  dollars  were  involved." 

"Is  that  so?" 

"Why,  yes!  and  Reben  was  right  in  the  thick  of  it. 
Both  sides  were  trying  to  get  him  in." 

"Who's  Reben?"  said  Winfield.  "What  does  he  manu 
facture?" 

Sheila  laughed,  shocked  at  his  boundless  ignorance. 
It  was  like  asking,  "What  does  St.  Peter  do  for  a  living?" 

"You  don't  know  much  about  the  theater,  do  you?" 

"No,"  he  laughed,  "and  you  don't  know  much  about 
weighing-machines . ' ' 

"No." 

"Neither  do  I.     I've  got  to  learn." 

"Then  you'd  better  be  hurrying  home.  I  wouldn't  for 
worlds  interfere  with  your  career." 

She  felt  quite  grandmotherly  as  she  said  it.  She  did 
not  look  it,  though,  and  as  he  stole  a  glance  at  her  beauty, 
all  demure  and  moonlike  in  the  moon,  he  sighed:  "But 
I  can't  bear  to  leave  you  just  as  I'm  beginning  to — " 
he  wanted  to  say  "to  love  you,"  but  he  had  not  prepared 
for  the  word,  so  he  said,  "to  get  acquainted  with  you." 

190 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

She  understood  his  unspoken  phrase  and  it  saddened 
her.  But  she  continued  to  be  very  old  and  extremely 
sage.  "It's  too  bad;  but  we'll  meet  again,  perhaps." 

"That's  so,  I  suppose.  Well,  all  right,  we'll  be  sen 
sible." 

And  so,  like  two  extremely  good  children,  they  put 
away  temptation  and  closed  the  door  of  the  jam-closet. 
Who  can  be  solemner  than  youth  at  this  frivolous  age? 
What  can  solemnize  solemnity  like  putting  off  till  to 
morrow  the  temptation  of  to-day? 

The  moment  Sheila  and  Winfield  sealed  up  love  in  a 
preserve- jar  and  labeled  it,  "Not  to  be  opened  till  Christ 
mas,"  and  shelved  it,  that  love  became  unutterably 
desirable . 

Nothing  that  they  could  have  resolved,  nothing  that 
any  one  else  could  have  advised  them,  could  have  mutually 
endeared  them  so  instantly  and  so  pathetically  as  their 
earnest  decision  that  they  must  not  let  themselves  grow 
dear  to  each  other. 

They  finished  their  ride  back  in  silence,  leaving  behind 
them  a  moon  that  seemed  to  drag  at  their  flying  shoulders 
with  silver  grappling-hooks.  The  air  was  humming  for 
bidden  music  in  their  ears  and  the  locked-up  houses 
seemed  to  order  them  to  remain  abroad. 

But  he  drew  up  at  her  little  apartment-hotel  and  took 
her  to  the  door,  where  a  sleepy  night-clerk-plus-elevator- 
boy  opened  the  locked  door  for  her  and  went  back  to 
sleep. 

Sheila  and  Winfield  defied  the  counsel  of  the  night  by 
primly  shaking  hands.  Sheila  spoke  as  if  she  were  leav 
ing  a  formal  reception. 

"Thank  you  ever  so  much  for  the  lovely  ride.  And — 
er —  Well,  good  night — or,  rather  good-by,  for  I  sup 
pose  you'll  be  leaving  to-morrow." 

"I  ought  to,"  he  groaned,  dubiously.  "Good  night! 
Good-by!" 

He  climbed  in,  waved  his  hat  to  her,  and  she  her  gloves 

191 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

at  him.  Far  down  the  street  he  turned  again  to  stare 
back  and  to  wave  farewell  again.  He  could  not  see  her, 
but  she  was  there,  mystically  sorrowing  at  the  lost  opportu 
nity  of  happiness,  the  unheeded  advice  of  nature — in  the 
mood  of  Paul  Bourget's  elegy  as  Debussy  set  it  to  music: 

"  Un  conseil  d'etre  heureux  semble  sortir  des  chases 
Et  monter  vers  le  cceur  trouble, 
Un  conseil  de  gouter  le  char  me  d'etre  au  monde 
Cependant  qu'on  est  jeune  et  que  le  soir  est  beau; 
Car  nous  nous  en  allons,  comme  s'en  va  cette  onde — 
Elle  a  la  mer,  nous  au  tombeau.n 


CHAPTER   XXVII 

INFIELD  had  said,  "I  ought  to!"  It  is  strange 
V  V  that  we  always  say  "I  ought  to"  with  skepticism, 
wondering  both  "Shall  I?"  and  "Will  I?"  If  our  selves 
are  our  real  gods,  we  are  all  agnostics. 

The  next  morning  Sheila  woke  with  less  than  her  yester 
joy.  Leisure  was  not  so  much  a  luxury  and  more  of  a 
bore.  Not  that  she  felt  regret  for  the  lack  of  rehearsals. 
She  was  not  interested  in  plays,  but  in  the  raw  material 
of  plays,  and  she  was  not  so  proud  of  her  noble  renuncia 
tion  of  Bret  Winfield  as  she  had  been. 

To  fight  off  her  new  loneliness  she  decided  to  go  shop 
ping.  When  men  are  restless  they  go  to  clubs  or  billiard- 
parlors  or  saloons.  Women  go  prowling  through  the 
shops.  The  Clinton  shops  were  as  unpromising  to  Sheila 
as  a  man's  club  in  summer.  But  there  was  no  other  way 
to  kill  time. 

As  she  set  out  she  saw  Bret  Winfield's  car  loafing  in 
front  of  her  hotel.  He  was  sitting  in  it.  The  faces  of 
both  showed  a  somewhat  dim  surprise.  Sheila  quickened 
her  steps  to  the  curb,  where  he  hastened  to  alight. 

"You  didn't  go,"  she  said,  brilliantly. 

"No." 

"Why  not?" 

"I— I  couldn't." 

"Why?" 

"Well,  I  didn't  sleep  a  wink  last  night,  and — " 

"I  didn't  close  my  eyes,  either." 

It  was  a  perfectly  sincere  statement  on  both  sides  and 
perfectly  untrue  in  both  cases.  Both  had  slept  enviably 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

most  of  the  time  they  thought  they  were  awake.  Sheila 
tried  to  make  conversation: 

"What  was  on  your  mind?" 

"You!" 

His  words  filled  her  with  delicious  fright.  On  the  lofty 
hill  under  the  low-hanging  moon  he  had  scared  love  off 
by  attempted  caresses.  With  one  word  he  brought  love 
back  in  a  rose-clouded  mantle  that  gave  their  communion 
a  solitude  there  on  the  noisy  street  with  the  cars  brawling 
by  and  the  crowds  passing  and  peering,  people  nudging 
and  whispering:  "That's  her!  That's  Sheila  Kemble! 
Ain't  she  pretty?  She's  just  grand  in  the  new  show! 
Saw  it  yet?" 

They  stood  in  gawky  speechlessness  till  he  said,  "Which 
way  you  going?" 

"  I  have  some  shopping  to  do." 

"Oh!  Too  bad.  I  was  going  to  ask  you  to  take  a 
little  spin." 

They  span. 

Winfield  did  not  leave  Clinton  till  the  week  was  gone 
and  Sheila  with  it.  They  were  together  constantly, 
making  little  efforts  at  concealment  that  attracted  all 
manner  of  attention  in  the  whole  jealous  town. 

Vickery  and  Eldon  were  not  the  least  alive  to  Winfield 's 
incursion  into  Sheila's  thoughts.  Both  regarded  it  as 
nothing  less  than  a  barbaric  danger.  Both  felt  that 
Winfield,  for  all  his  good  qualities,  was  a  Philistine. 
They  knew  that  he  had  little  interest  in  the  stage  as  an 
institution,  and  no  reverence  for  it.  It  was  to  him  an 
amusement  at  best,  and  a  scandal  at  worst. 

But  to  Vickery  the  theater  was  the  loftiest  form  of 
literary  publication,  and  to  Eldon  it  was  the  noblest 
forum  of  human  debate.  To  both  of  them  Sheila  was 
as  a  high  priestess  at  an  altar.  They  felt  that  Winfield 
wanted  to  lure  her  or  drag  her  away  from  the  temple  to 
an  old-fashioned  home  where  her  individuality  would  be 

194 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

merged  in  her  husband's  manufacturing  interests,  and  her 
histrionism  would  be  confined  to  an  audience  of  one,  or 
to  the  entertainment  of  her  own  children. 

This  feeling  was  entirely  apart  from  the  love  that  both 
of  them  felt  for  Sheila  the  woman.  Each  was  sure  in  his 
heart  that  his  own  love  for  Sheila  was  far  the  greatest 
of  the  three  loves. 

Vickery  forgot  even  his  own  vain  struggles  to  make  the 
heroine  of  his  play  behave,  in  his  eagerness  to  save"  Sheila 
from  ruining  the  dramatic  unity  of  her  life  by  interpolating 
a  commercial  marriage  as  the  third  act.  He  found  a 
chance  to  speak  to  her  one  afternoon  just  before  the 
second  curtain  rose.  He  was  as  excited  as  if  he  had  been 
making  a  curtain  speech  and  nearly  as  awkward: 

"Sheila,"  he  hemmed  and  hawed,  "I  want  to  speak  to 
you  very  frankly  about  Bret.  Of  course,  he's  a  splendid 
fellow  and  a  friend  I'm  very  fond  of,  but  if  he  goes  and 
makes  you  fall  in  love  with  him  I'll  break  his  head." 

"He's  bigger  than  you  are,"  Sheila  laughed. 

"Yes,"  Vickery  admitted,  "but  there  are  clubs  that  are 
harder  than  even  his  hard  head.  If  he  takes  you  off  the 
stage  I'll  never  forgive  myself  for  introducing  him  to  you. 
I'll  never  forgive  him,  either — or  you.  In  Heaven's  name, 
Sheila,  don't  let  him  take  you  off  the  stage.  I've  heard 
of  hitching  your  wagon  to  a  star,  but  this  would  be  hitch 
ing  a  star  to  a  wagon.  I  can't  ask  you  to  marry  me  for 
the  Lord  knows  how  long;  even  assuming  that  you  would 
consider  me  if  I  had  a  million  instead  of  being  a  penniless 
playwright;  but  I  at  least  would  try  to  help  you  on  in 
your  career.  I'd  rather  you  wouldn't  marry  either  of  us 
than  marry  him." 

Sheila  chuckled  luxuriously:  "Don't  you  lose  any 
sleep  over  me,  Vick.  In  the  first  place,  Mr.  Winfield  has 
never  even  suggested  that  I  should  marry  him." 

Which  was  fact. 

"  In  the  second  place,  if  he  did  I  should  decline  him  with 
thanks." 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Which  was  prophecy. 

Vickery  was  so  relieved  that  he  returned  to  the  dis 
cussion  of  his  play.  He  promised  to  have  it  ready  for  fall 
rehearsals.  Sheila  assured  him  that  she  would  be  ready 
whenever  the  play  was.  Then  her  cue  came  and  she 
walked  into  her  laboratory,  while  Vickery  hastened  out 
front  to  study  the  effect  of  his  new  lines  on  the 
audience. 

When  Sheila  issued  from  her  dressing-room  for  the 
third  act,  in  which  she  did  not  appear  for  some  time  after 
the  curtain  was  up,  she  found  Eldon  waiting  for  her.  He 
was  suffering  as  from  stage-fright,  and  he  delivered  the  lines 
he  had  been  rehearsing  in  his  dressing-room  nearly  as 
badly  as  the  lines  he  had  forgotten  the  night  he  played 
the  farmer  with  the  dark  lantern.  The  substance  of 
what  he  jumbled  was  this: 

"Sheila,  I  want  to  speak  very  frankly  to  you.  Don't 
take  it  for  mere  jealousy,  though  you  have  hardly  looked 
at  me  since  Mr.  Vickery  and  the  Winfield  fellow  struck 
town.  I  don't  suppose  you  care  for  me  any  more,  but 
I  beg  you  not  to  let  anybody  take  you  off  the  stage.  You 
belong.  You  have  the  God-given  gifts.  Your  success 
proves  where  your  duty  to  yourself  lies. 

"If  you  can't  marry  me  and  you  must  marry  some  one, 
marry  our  author.  It  would  break  my  heart,  but  I'd 
rather  he'd  have  you  than  anybody  but  me,  for  he'd  keep 
you  where  you  belong,  anyway.  I  suppose  this  Win- 
field  has  some  extraordinary  charms  for  you.  He  seems 
a  nice  enough  fellow  and  he'll  come  into  a  heap  of  money. 
But  if  I  thought  there  was  any  danger  of  his  carrying  you 
off,  I'd  knock  him  so  far  out  of  the  theater  that  he'd 
never — " 

Sheila  was  bristling  up  to  say  that  two  could  play  at 
the  same  game,  but  Eldon  had  heard  his  signal  for  en 
trance,  and,  leaving  his  gloomy  earnestness  in  the  wings, 
he  breezed  on  to  the  stage  with  all  imaginable  flippancy. 
He  came  off  just  as  gaily  a  little  later,  only  to  resume  his 

196 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

sobriety  and  his  speech  the  moment  he  passed  the  side 
line: 

"As  I  was  saying,  Sheila,  I  implore  you  not  to  ruin 
your  life  by  marrying  that  man." 

Sheila  had  many  things  to  say,  but  her  actress  self  had 
heard  the  approach  of  her  cue,  and  she  spoke  hastily: 
"You  are  worrying  yourself  needlessly,  Floyd.  In  the 
first  place,  Mr.  Winfield  has  never  even  suggested  that  I 
should  marry  him;  in  the  second  place,  if  he  did,  I'd 
decline  with — " 

And  then  she  slipped  into  the  scene  and  became  the 
creature  of  Vickery's  fancy. 

On  Saturday  night  the  house-manager  gave  a  farewell 
supper  to  Sheila  on  the  stage  and  naturally  failed  to  in 
clude  Winfield  in  the  invitations.  He  sulked  about  the 
somnolent  town  in  a  dreadful  fit  of  loneliness,  but  he 
could  not  get  a  word  with  Sheila.  Sheila,  now  that 
she  was  leaving  the  company,  felt  a  mingling  of  fondness 
for  the  shabby  old  stage  and  the  workaday  troupe  and 
of  happiness  at  being  pardoned  out  of  the  penitentiary. 

On  the  morrow  Winfield  asked  her  by  telephone  if  he 
might  take  her  to  the  train  in  his  car.  She  consented. 
She  was  late  getting  ready,  and  he  had  to  go  at  high 
speed,  with  no  chance  for  farewell  conversation.  As  they 
reached  the  station  his  agony  at  leaving  her  wrenched  from 
him  a  desperate  plea: 

"Won't  you  kiss  me  Good-by?" 

In  the  daylight,  among  the  unromantic  hacks,  she 
laughed  at  the  thought : 

"Kiss  you  Good-by?  Why,  I  haven't  kissed  you 
How-d'-do?  yet!" 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

WHEN  Sheila  reached  the  home  of  her  father  and 
mother  she  spent  her  first  few  days  renewing  her 
kinship  with  them.  They  seemed  older  to  her,  but  they 
had  not  aged  as  she  had.  They  had  been  through  just 
one  more  season.  She  had  passed  through  an  epoch. 

They  found  her  mightily  changed.  They  were  proud 
of  her.  They  could  see  that  she  had  taken  good  care  of 
her  body.  They  knew  that  she  had  succeeded  in  her  art. 
They  wondered  what  she  had  done  with  her  soul.  They 
had  reached  that  thrilling,  horribly  anxious  state  of 
parentage  when  the  girl  child  is  grown  to  a  woman  and 
when  every  step  is  dangerous.  Authority  is  ended; 
advice  is  untranslatable,  and  the  parents  become  only 
spectators  at  a  play  whose  star  they  have  provided  but 
whose  cast  they  cannot  select. 

Sheila  was  not  troubled  about  these  things.  Her  chief 
excitement  was  in  the  luxury  of  having  her  afternoons 
to  herself  and  every  evening  free.  She  was  like  a  night- 
watchman  on  a  vacation.  It  was  wonderful  to  be  her 
own  mistress  from  twilight  to  midnight.  She  had  no 
make-up  to  put  on  except  for  the  eyes  of  the  sun.  There 
were  no  footlights.  The  only  need  for  attention  to  her 
skin  was  to  fight  off  sunburn  and  the  attacks  of  the  surf 
in  which  she  spent  hours  upon  hours. 

The  business  of  her  neighbors  and  herself  was  im 
provising  hilarities:  the  sea,  the  motors,  saddle-horses, 
tennis,  golf,  watching  polo-games,  horse-races,  airship- 
races,  all  the  summer  industries  of  Long  Island. 

The  Kembles  had  a  wide  and  easy  acquaintance  with 

198 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

the  aristocracy.  Roger  and  Polly  forgot,  if  the  others 
did  not,  that  they  were  stage  folk.  They  enjoyed  the 
elegancies  of  life  and  knew  how  to  be  familiar  without 
being  vulgar.  Sheila  inherited  their  acquaintance  and 
had  been  bred  to  their  graces. 

Young  women  and  old  of  social  importance  made  the 
girl  one  of  their  intimates.  Any  number  of  more  or  less 
nice  young  plutocrats  offered  to  lead  her  along  the  prim 
rose  path  as  far  as  she  would  go.  But  she  compelled 
respect,  perhaps  with  a  little  extra  severity  for  the  sake 
of  her  maligned  profession.  Before  many  days  she  would 
have  to  return  to  it,  but  she  was  in  no  hurry. 

One  morning  in  the  sun-flailed  surf  she  grew  weary  of 
the  jigging  crowd  of  rope-dancers.  Seeing  that  one  of  the 
floats  was  empty,  she  swam  out  to  it.  It  was  more  of  a 
journey  than  she  thought,  for  we  judge  distances  as 
walkers,  not  as  swimmers.  She  climbed  aboard  with 
difficulty  and  rested,  staring  out  to  sea,  the  boundless  sea 
where  big  waves  came  bowing  in,  nodding  their  white 
feathers. 

She  heard  some  one  else  swimming  up,  but  did  not  look 
around.  She  did  not  want  to  talk  to  any  of  the  men  she 
had  swum  away  from.  She  felt  the  float  tilt  as  whoever 
it  was  sprang  from  the  water  and  seated  himself,  dripping. 
Then  she  heard  a  voice  with  all  the  morning  in  it : 

"Good  morning!" 

"Bret  Winfield!"  she  cried,  as  she  whirled  on  one  hip 
like  a  mermaid. 

"  Sheila  Kemble!"  he  laughed. 

"What  on  earth  are  you  doing  here?" 

"I'm  not  on  earth;   I'm  alone  in  midocean  with  you." 

"But  what  brought  you?    Where  did  you  come  from?" 

"Home.     I  just  couldn't  stand  it." 

"Stand  what?" 

"Being  away  from  you." 

"Good  heavens!" 

"''It's  been  the  other  place  to  me." 

199 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"Really?" 

"I  told  Dad  I  needed  a  rest;  that  something  was  the 
matter  with  my  mind.  He  admitted  that,  but  blamed  it 
to  lack  of  use.  Then  I  ducked.  I  shipped  my  car  to 
New  York,  and  flew  down  the  Motor  Parkway  to  here. 
Got  here  yesterday.  Been  hanging  round,  trying  to  find 
you  alone.  Swell  chance !  There's  a  swarm  after  you  all 
the  time,  isn't  there?" 

"Is  there?" 

"Last  night  I  saw  you  dancing  at  the  hotel  with  every 
Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry.  I  hoped  you'd  come  out  and  sit 
on  the  piazza  so  that  I  could  sandbag  the  man  and  carry 
you  off.  But  you  didn't." 

"No." 

"Why?" 

"  I  didn't  care  to  be  alone  with  any  of  them." 

"Lord  bless  your  sweet  soul!  Were  you  thinking  of 
me?" 

"Not  necessarily." 

"Are  you  glad  to  see  me?" 

"Oh  yes.     The  more  the  merrier." 

This  impudence  brought  his  high  hopes  down.  But 
they  soared  again  when  she  said,  with  charming  in 
consistency: 

"Dog-on  it!  here  comes  somebody!" 

A  fat  man  who  somewhat  resembled  the  globular  figures 
cartoonists  use  to  represent  the  world,  wallowed  out, 
splashing  like  a  side-wheel  raft-boat.  He  tried  to  climb 
aboard,  but  his  equator  was  too  wide  for  his  short  arms, 
and  neither  Sheila  nor  Winfield  offered  to  lend  him  a  hand. 
He  gave  up  and  propelled  himself  back  to  shore  with  the 
grace  of  a  bell-buoy. 

"Good-by,  old  flotsam  and  jetsam,"  said  Winfield. 

Sheila  could  not  but  note  the  difference  between  the 
other  man  and  Winfield.  There  was  every  opportunity 
for  observation  in  both  cases.  Each  inly  acknowledged 
that  the  other  was  perfection  physically.  Each  wished 

200 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

to  be  able  to  observe  the  other's  soul  in  equal  complete 
ness  of  display.  But  that  power  was  denied  them. 

It  would  have  served  them  little  to  know  each  other's: 
souls,  since  happiness  in  love  is  not  a  question  of  individ 
ual  perfections,  but  of  their  combination  and  what  results: 
from  it.  Fire  and  water  are  excellent  in  their  place,  but 
brought  together,  the  result  is  familiar — either  the  water 
changes  the  flame  to  sodden  ashes,  or  the  flame  changes 
the  water  to  steam.  Both  lose  their  qualities,  change 
unrecognizably. 

In  any  case,  Winfield  courted  Sheila  with  all  the  im 
petuous  stubbornness  of  his  nature.  He  had  no  visible 
rivals  to  fight,  but  the  affair  was  not  denied  the  added 
charm  of  danger. 

One  blistering  day,  when  all  of  the  populace  that  could 
slid  off  the  hot  land  into  the  water  like  half-baked  am 
phibians,  Sheila  and  Winfield  plunged  into  the  nearest 
fringe  of  surf.  The  beach  was  like  Broadway  when  the 
matinees  let  out.  They  swam  to  the  float.  It  was 
as  crowded  as  a  seal-rock  with  sirens,  sea-leopards,  sea- 
cows,  walruses,  dugongs,  and  manatees.  There  was  no 
room  for  Sheila  till  an  obliging  faun  gallantly  offered  her 
his  seat  and  dived  from  the  raft  more  graciously  than 
gracefully,  for  he  smacked  the  water  flatly  in  what  is 
known  as  a  belly-buster  or  otherwise.  He  nearly  swamped 
her  in  his  back-wash. 

She  felt  a  longing  for  the  outer  solitudes  and,  when 
she  had  rested  and  breathed  a  few  times,  she  struck  out 
for  the  open  sea  beyond  the  ropes.  Winfield  followed  her 
gaily  and  they  reveled  in  the  life  of  mer-man  and  mer-girl 
till  suddenly  she  realized  that  she  was  tired. 

Forgetting  where  she  was,  she  attempted  to  stand  up. 
She  thrust  her  feet  down  into  a  void.  There  is  hardly 
a  more  hideous  sensation,  or  a  more  terrifying,  for  an 
inexpert  swimmer.  She  went  under  with  a  gasp  and  came 
up  choking. 

Winfield  was  just  diving  into  a  big  wave  and  did  not 
14  201 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

see  her.  The  same  wave  caught  Sheila  by  the  back  of 
her  head  and  held  her  face  down,  then  swept  on,  leaving 
her  strangling  and  smitten  into  a  panic.  She  struck  out 
for  shore  with  all  awkwardness,  as  if  robbed  of  experience 
with  the  water. 

Winfield  turned  to  her,  and  sang,  "A  life  on  the  bound 
ing  waves  for  me."  An  ugly,  snarling  breaker  whelmed 
her  again,  and  a  third  found  her  unready  and  cowering 
before  its  toppling  wall.  She  called  Winfield  by  his  first 
name  for  the  first  time: 

"Bret,  I  can't  get  back." 

He  crept  to  her  side  with  all  his  speed,  and  spoke 
soothing  words:  "You  poor  child!  of  course  you  can." 

"I— I'm  afraid." 

A  massive  green  billow  flung  on  her  a  crest  like  a  cart 
load  of  paving-stones,  and  sent  her  spinning,  bewildered. 
Winfield  just  heard  her  moan: 

"I  give  up." 

He  clutched  her  sleeve  as  she  drooped  under  the  petty 
wave  that  succeeded.  He  tried  to  remember  what  the 
books  and  articles  said,  but  he  had  never  saved  anybody 
and  he  was  only  an  ordinary  swimmer  himself. 

He  swam  on  his  side,  reaching  out  with  one  hand  and 
dragging  her  with  the  other.  But  helplessly  he  kicked 
her  delicate  body  and  she  floated  face  downward.  He 
turned  on  his  back  and,  suddenly  remembering  the  in 
structions,  put  his  hands  in  her  armpits  and  lifted  her 
head  above  all  but  the  ripple-froth,  propelling  himself 
with  his  feet  alone. 

But  his  progress  was  dismally  slow,  and  he  could  not 
see  where  he  was  going.  The  laughter  of  the  bathers  and 
their  shrieks  as  the  breakers  charged  in  among  them  grew 
fainter.  A  longshore  current  was  haling  them  away  from 
the  crowds.  The  life-savers  were  busy  hoisting  a  big 
woman  into  their  boat  and  everybody  was  watching  the 
rescue.  Nobody  had  missed  Sheila.  Her  own  father  and 
mother  were  whooping  like  youngsters  in  the  surf. 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

Winfield  twisted  his  head  and  tried  to  make  out  his 
course,  but  his  dim  eyes  could  not  see  so  far  without  the 
glasses  he  had  left  at  the  boat-house ;  and  the  light  on  the 
water  was  blinding. 

He  was  tired  and  dismayed.  He  rested  for  a  while, 
then  struck  out  till  he  must  rest  again.  At  last  he  spoke 
to  her:  "Sheila." 

"Yes,  dear." 

"You'll  have  to  help  me.     I  can't  see  far  enough." 

"You  poor  boy!"  she  cried.     "Tell  me  what  to  do." 

"Can  you  put  your  hands  on  my  shoulders,  and  tell  me 
which  way  to  swim?  I'm  all  turned  round." 

He  drew  her  to  him,  and  revolved  her  and  set  her 
hands  on  his  shoulders,  then  turned  his  back  to  her, 
and  swam  with  all-fours.  She  floated  out  above  him 
like  a  mantle,  and,  holding  her  head  high,  directed 
him.  She  was  his  eyes,  and  he  was  her  limbs,  and 
thus  curiously  twinned  they  fought  their  way  through 
the  alien  element. 

The  sea  seemed  to  want  them  for  its  own.  It  attacked 
them  with  waves  that  went  over  them  with  the  roar  of 
railroad  trains.  Beneath,  the  icy  undertow  gripped  at  his 
feet.  His  lungs  hurt  him  so  that  he  felt  that  death  would 
be  a  lesser  ache  than  breathing. 

Sheila's  weight,  for  all  the  lightness  the  water  gave  itt 
threatened  to  drown  them  both.  But  her  words  were  full 
of  help.  In  his  behalf  she  put  into  her  voice  more  cheer 
than  she  found  in  her  heart.  The  shore  seemed  rather 
to  recede  than  to  approach. 

Now  and  then  she  would  call  aloud  for  help,  but  the 
salt-water  had  weakened  her  throat  and  there  was  always 
some  new  sensation  ashore. 

At  length,  Winfield  could  hear  the  crash  of  the  breakers 
and  at  length  Sheila  was  telling  him  that  they  were  almost 
in.  Again  and  again  he  stabbed  downward  for  a  footing 
and  found  none.  Eventually,  however,  he  felt  the 
blessed  foundation  of  the  world  beneath  him  and,  turn- 

203 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

ing,  caught  Sheila  about  the  waist  and  thrust  her  forward 
till  she  too  could  stand. 

The  beach  was  bad  where  they  landed  and  the  baffled 
waters  dragged  at  their  trembling  legs  like  ropes,  but  they 
made  onward  to  the  dry  sand.  They  fell  down,  panting, 
aghast,  and  stared  at  the  innocent  sea,  where  joyous  bil 
lows  came  in  like  young  men  running  with  their  hands 
aloft.  Far  to  their  left  the  mob  shrieked  and  cavorted. 
Farther  away  to  their  right  the  next  colony  of  maniacs 
cavorted  and  shrieked. 

When  breathing  was  less  like  swallowing  swords  they 
looked  at  each  other,  smiled  with  sickly  lips,  and  clasped 
cold,  shriveled  hands. 

"Well,"  said  Sheila,  "you  saved  my  life,  didn't  you?" 

"No,"  he  answered;   "you  saved  mine." 

She  gave  him  a  pale-blue  smile  and,  as  the  chill  seized 
her,  she  spoke,  with  teeth  knocking  together,  "We  s-saved 
dea-dea  chother." 

"Ye-yes,"  he  ch-chattered,  "so  w-we  bu-bu-bu-bulong 
to  wea-weachother." 

"All  r-r-right-t-t-t." 

That  was  his  proposal  and  her  acceptance.  They  rose 
and  clasped  hands  and  ran  for  the  bath-house,  while 
agues  of  rapture  made  scroll-work  of  their  outlines. 
They  had  escaped  from  dying  together,  but  they  were  not 
to  escape  from  living  together. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE  betrothed  couple  had  no  opportunity  to  seal  the 
engagement  with  the  usual  ceremonies.  When  they 
met  again,  fully  clothed,  she  was  so  late  to  her  luncheon 
that  she  had  to  fly. 

Already,  after  their  high  tragedy  and  their  rosy  romance, 
the  little  things  of  existence  were  asserting  their  impor 
tance.  That  afternoon  Sheila  had  an  engagement  that 
she  could  not  get  out  of,  and  a  dinner  afterward.  She 
had  booked  these  dates  without  dreaming  of  what  was 
to  happen. 

It  was  not  till  late  in  the  evening  that  Sheila  could 
steal  away  to  Winfield,  who  stole  across  the  lawn  to  her 
piazza  by  appointment. 

The  scene  was  perfectly  set.  An  appropriate  moon  was 
in  her  place.  The  breeze  was  exquisitely  aromatic.  Win- 
field  was  in  summer  costume  of  dinner-suit  and  straw  hat. 
Sheila  was  in  a  light  evening  gown  with  no  hat. 

They  cast  hasty  glances  about,  against  witnesses,  and 
then  he  flung  his  arms  around  her,  and  she  flung  hers 
around  him.  He  crushed  her  as  fiercely  as  he  dared,  and 
she  him  as  fiercely  as  she  could.  Their  lips  met  in  the 
great  kiss  of  betrothal. 

She  was  happy  beyond  endurance.  She  was  in  love 
and  her  beloved  loved  her. 

All  the  Sheilas  there  were  in  her  soul  agreed  for  once  that 
she  was  happy  to  the  final  degree,  contented  beyond  be 
lief,  imparadised  on  earth.  The  Sheilas  voted  unani 
mously  that  love  was  life;  love  was  the  greatest  thing 
in  the  world;  that  woman's  place  was  with  her  lover,  that 

205 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

a  woman's  forum  was  the  home ;  and  that  any  career  out 
side  the  walls  was  a  plaything  to  be  put  away  and  for 
gotten  like  a  hobby-horse  outgrown. 

As  for  her  stage  career — pouf!  into  the  attic  with  it 
where  her  little  tin  house  and  the  tiny  tin  kitchen  and  her 
knitted  bear  and  the  glueless  dolls  reposed.  She  was 
going  to  have  a  real  house  and  real  children  and  real  life. 

While  she  was  consigning  her  ambitions  to  the  old 
trunk  up-stairs,  Winfield  was  refurbishing  his  ambitions. 
He  was  going  to  do  work  enough  for  two,  be  ambitious 
for  both  and  make  Sheila  the  proudest  wife  of  the  busiest 
husband  in  the  husband  business. 

But  these  great  resolutions  were  mainly  roaring  in  the 
back  parlors  of  their  brains.  On  the  piazzas  of  their  lips 
were  words  of  lovers'  nonsense.  There  is  no  use  quoting 
them.  They  would  sound  silly  even  to  those  who  have 
used  them  themselves. 

They  sounded  worse  than  that  to  Roger  and  Polly,  who 
heard  them  all. 

Roger  and  Polly  had  come  home  from  dancing  half  an 
hour  before,  and  had  dropped  into  chairs  in  the  living- 
room.  The  moon  on  the  sea  was  dazzling.  They  watched 
it  through  the  screens  that  strained  the  larger  mosquitoes, 
then  they  put  out  the  lights  because  the  view  was  better 
and  because  enough  mosquitoes  were  already  in  the  house. 

The  conversation  of  the  surf  had  made  all  the  neces 
sary  language  and  Roger  and  Polly  sat  in  the  tacit  comfort 
of  long-married  couples.  They  had  heard  Sheila  brought 
home  by  a  young  man  whom  she  dismissed  with  brevity. 
Before  they  found  energy  to  call  to  her,  another  young 
man  had  hurried  across  the  grass.  To  their  intense 
amazement  he  leaped  at  Sheila  and  she  did  not  scream. 
Both  merged  into  one  silhouette. 

Polly  and  Roger  were  aghast,  but  they  dared  not  speak. 
They  did  not  even  know  who  the  man  was.  Sheila  called 
him  by  no  name  to  identify  him,  though  she  called  him 
by  any  number  of  names  of  intense  saccharinity. 

206 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

At  length  Roger's  voice  came  through  the  gloom,  as 
gentle  as  a  shaft  of  moonlight  made  audible:  "  Ohx  Sheila." 

The  silhouette  was  snipped  in  two  as  if  by  scissors. 

"Ye-yes,  dodther."  She  had  tried  to  say  "Daddy" 
and  "father"  at  the  same  time. 

Roger's  voice  went  on  in  its  drawing-roomest  drawl: 
"  I  know  that  it  is  very  bad  play- writing  to  have  anybody 
overhear  anybody,  but  your  mother  and  I  got  home  first, 
and  your  dialogue  is — well,  really,  a  little  of  it  goes  a  great 
way,  and  we'd  like  to  know  the  name  of  your  leading  man." 

Winfield  and  Sheila  both  wished  that  they  had  drowned 
that  morning.  But  there  was  no  escape  from  making 
their  entrance  into  the  living-room,  where  Roger  turned 
on  the  lights.  All  eyes  blinked,  rather  with  confusion 
than  the  electric  display. 

The  elder  Kembles  had  met  Winfield  before,  but  had 
not  suspected  him  as  a  son-in-law-to-be.  Sheila  explained 
the  situation  and  laid  heavy  stress  on  how  Winfield  had 
rescued  her  from  drowning.  She  rather  gave  the  im 
pression  that  she  had  fallen  off  a  liner  two  days  out  and 
that  he  had  jumped  overboard  and  carried  her  to  safety 
single-handed. 

Winfield  tried  to  disclaim  the  glory,  but  he  managed 
to  gulp  up  a  proposal  in  phrases  he  had  read  somewhere. 

"I  came  to  ask  you  for  your  daughter's  hand." 

"It  looked  to  me  as  if  you  had  both  of  them  around 
your  neck,"  Roger  sighed.  Then  he  cleared  his  throat 
and  said:  "What  do  you  say,  Polly?  Do  we  give  our 
consent? — not  that  it  makes  any  difference." 

Polly  sighed.  "Sheila's  happiness  is  the  only  thing  to 
consider." 

"Ah,  Sheila's  happiness!"  Roger  groaned.  "That's  a 
large  order.  I  suppose  she  has  told  you,  Mr.  Wyndham, 
that  she  is  an  actress — or  is  trying  to  be?" 

"Oh  yes,  sir,"  Winfield  answered,  feeling  like  a  butler 
asking  for  a  position.  "I  fell  in  love  with  her  on  the 
stage." 

207 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"Ah,  so  you  are  an  actor,  too." 

"Oh  no,  sir!  I'm  a  manufacturer,  or  I  expect  to 
-be." 

"And  is  your  factory  one  that  can  be  carried  around 
with  you,  or  does  Sheila  intend — " 

<(Oh,  j    ,    ,    j-   going  to  leave  the  stage." 

"'Hum!"  said  Roger.     "When?" 

"Right  away,  I  hope,"  said  Winfield. 

"I'm  off  the  stage  now,"  said  Sheila.  "I'll  just  not  go 
back." 

"I  see,"  said  Roger,  while  Polly  stared  from  her  idolized 
•child  to  the  terrifying  stranger,  and  wrung  her  hands 
before  the  appalling  explosion  of  this  dynamite  in  the 
quiet  evening. 

"Well,  mummsy,"  Sheila  cried,  taking  her  mother  in  her 
arms,  "why  don't  you  say  something?" 
"  I — I  don't  know  what  to  say,"  Polly  whimpered. 

Roger's  uneasy  eyes  were  attracted  by  the  living-room 
table,  where  there  was  a  comfortable  clutter  of  novels 
and  magazines.  A  copy  of  The  Munsey  was  lying  there; 
it  was  open,  face  down.  Roger  picked  it  up  and  offered 
the  open  book  to  Sheila. 

She  and  Winfield  looked  down  at  a  full-page  portrait 
of  Sheila. 

"Had  you  seen  this,  Mr. — Mr. — Wingate,  is  it?     It's  a 
forecast  of  the  coming  season  and  it  says — it  says — 
He  produced  his  eye-glasses  and  read : 

' '  The  most  interesting  announcement  among  the  Reben  plans 
is  the  statement  that  Sheila  Kemble  is  to  be  promoted  to  stellar 
honors  in  a  new  play  written  especially  for  her.  While  we  de 
plore  the  custom  of  rushing  half-baked  young  beauties  into  the 
electric  letters,  an  exception  must  be  made  in  the  case  of  this 
rising  young  artist.  She  has  not  only  revealed  extraordinary 
accomplishments  and  won  for  herself  a  great  following  of  ad 
mirers  throughout  the  country,  but  she  has  also  enjoyed  a 
double  heritage  in  the  gifts  of  her  distinguished  forebears,  who 
are  no  less  personages  than ' — et  cetera,  et  cetera." 

208 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Sheila  and  Winfield  stared  at  the  page  from  which 
Sheila's  public  image  beamed  quizzically  at  herself  and  at 
the  youth  who  aspired  to  rob  her  "great  following"  of 
their  darling. 

"What  about  that?"  said  Roger. 

Winfield  looked  so  pitiful  to  Sheila  that  she  cried, 
"Well,  my  'great  following'  will  have  to  follow  somebody 
else,  for  I  belong  to  Bret  now." 

" I  see,"  said  Roger.  "And  when  does  the  rising  young 
star — er — set  ?  When  does  the  marriage  take  place  ?" 

"Whenever  Bret  wants  me,"  said  Sheila,  and  she 
added  "Ooh!"  for  he  squeezed  her  ringers  with  merciless 
gratitude. 

"Oh,  Sheila!  Sheila!"  said  Polly,  clutching  at  her  other 
hand  as  if  she  would  hold  her  little  girl  back  from  crossing 
the  stile  of  womanhood. 

Roger  hummed  several  times  in  the  greatest  possible 
befuddlement.  At  length  he  said: 

"And  what  do  your  parents  say,  Mr.  Winston? — or  are 
they — er — living  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  sir,  both  of  them,  thank  you.  They  don't  know 
anything  about  it  yet,  sir." 

"And  do  you  think  they  will  be  pleased?" 

"When  they  know  Sheila  they  can't  help  loving  her." 

"  It  has  happened,  I  believe,"  said  Roger,  "that  parents 
have  not  altogether  echoed  their  children's  enthusiasms. 
And  there  are  still  a  few  people  who  would  not  consider 
a  popular  actress  an  ideal  daughter-in-law." 

"Oh,  they  won't  make  any  trouble!"  said  Winfield. 
"They  ought  to  be  proud  of — of  an  alliance  with  such — er 
— distinguished  forebears  as  you."  He  tried  to  include 
Polly  and  Roger  in  one  look,  and  he  thought  the  tribute 
rather  graceful. 

Roger  smiled  at  the  bungled  compliment  and  answered, 
"Well,  the  Montagues  and  the  Capulets  were  both  prom 
inent  families,  but  that  didn't  help  Romeo  and  Juliet 
much." 

209 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Winfield  writhed  at  Roger's  light  sarcasm.  "  It  doesn't 
matter  what  they  say.  I  am  of  age." 

"So  I  judge,  but  have  you  an  income  of  your  own?" 

"No,  but —  Well,  I  can  take  care  of  Sheila,  I  guess!" 
He  was  angry  now. 

Roger  rather  liked  him  for  his  bluster,  but  he  said, 
"In  any  case  there  is  no  especial  hurry,  I  presume." 

To  the  young  lovers  there  seemed  to  be  the  most  enor 
mous  necessity  of  haste  to  forsake  the  world  and  build 
their  own  nest  in  their  own  tree. 

Roger  was  silent  and  Polly  was  silent.  Winfield  felt 
called  upon  to  speak.  At  last  he  managed  to  extort  a 
few  words  from  his  embarrassment : 

"Anyway,  I  can  count  on  your  consent,  can  I?" 

' '  Our  consent !"  laughed  Roger.  ' '  What  have  we  to  say  ? 
We're  only  the  parents  of  a  young  American  princess. 
If  Sheila  says  yes,  your  next  trouble  is  your  own  parents, 
for  you  are  only  an  American  man." 

"Anyway,  you  won't  oppose  us?"  Winfield  urged. 

"My  boy,  I  would  no  more  oppose  Sheila  than  I  would 
oppose  the  Twentieth  Century  Limited  in  full  flight." 

Sheila  pouted.  "That's  nice!  Now  he'll  think  I'm 
something  terrible." 

Roger  put  his  arm  about  his  daughter,  who  was  nearly 
taller  than  he  was.  "My  child,"  he  said,  "I  think  you 
are  the  finest  woman  in  the  world  except  your  own  mother. 
And  if  it  would  make  you  happy  and  keep  you  happy 
I'd  cut  off  my  right  arm."  Then  he  kissed  her,  and  his 
eyes  were  more  like  a  sorrowful  boy's  than  a  father's. 
There  was  a  lull  in  the  conversation  and  he  escaped  with 
the  words:  "Mother,  it's  time  for  the  old  folks  to  go  to 
bed.  The  young  people  have  a  lot  to  talk  over  and 
we're  in  the  way.  Good  night,  Mr.  Win — my  boy,  and 
good  luck  to  you — though  God  alone  knows  good  luck 
when  He  sees  it." 

When  the  veterans  had  climbed  the  stairs  to  the  shelf 
on  which  younger  romance  had  put  them,  Bret  and 

210 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Sheila  resumed  that  interrupted  embrace,  but  deliber 
ately  and  solemnly.  It  was  a  serious  matter,  this  getting 
married  and  all. 

The  next  morning  brought  a  flood  of  sunlight  on  an 
infinitely  cheerful  ocean  and  the  two  lovers'  thoughts 
flew  to  each  other  from  their  remote  windows  like  carrier- 
pigeons. 

Sheila  was  perturbed,  and  as  she  watched  Winfield 
approach  she  thought  that  his  very  motor  seemed  to  be  a 
trifle  sullen.  Then  she  ran  down  to  the  piazza  to  meet 
him.  She  carried  a  letter  in  her  left  hand.  She  waved 
him  welcome  with  the  other. 

As  he  ran  up  the  walk  he  took  from  his  pocket  a  tele 
gram.  They  vanished  into  the  house  to  exchange  appro 
priate  salutes,  but  Pennock  was  there  as  housemaid,  and 
she  was  giving  orders  to  Roger's  valet,  who  doubled  as 
the  butler  in  summer-time. 

So  they  returned  to  the  porch  embraceless.  This  began 
the  morning  wrong.  Then  Winfield  handed  Sheila  his 
telegram,  a  long  night  letter  from  his  father,  saying  that 
his  health  was  bad  and  he  might  have  to  take  a  rest. 
He  added,  vigorously: 

"You've  fooled  away  time  enough.  Get  back  on  the 
job:  learn  your  business  and  attend  to  it." 

Winfield  shook  his  head  dolefully.     "  Isn't  that  rotten?" 

"Mate  it  with  this,"  said  Sheila,  and  handed  him  her 
letter. 

DEAR  SHEILA  KEMBLE, — Better  run  in  town  and  see  me 
to-morrow.  I've  got  a  great  play  for  you  from  France.  Re 
hearsals  begin  immediately.  Trusting  your  rest  has  filled  you 
with  ambition  for  a  strenuous  season,  I  am, 

Yours  faithfully,        HY.  REBEN. 

This  threw  Winfield  into  a  panic.  "But  you  promised 
me — 

"Yes,  dear,"  she  cooed,  "and  I've  already  written  the 
answer.  How's  this?"  She  gave  him  the  answer  she 

211 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

had  worked  over  for  an  hour,  trying  to  make  it  as  business 
like  as  possible: 

Letter  received  regret  state  owing  change  plans  shall  not 
return  stage  this  season  best  wishes. 

SHEILA  KEMBLE. 

Even  this  did  not  allay  Winfield's  alarm.  "Why  do 
you  say  'this  season'?"  he  demanded.  "Are  you  only 
marrying  me  for  one  season?" 

"For  all  eternity,"  she  cried,  "but  I  wanted  to  let  poor 
old  Reben  down  easy." 

Sheila  found  that  Reben  was  not  so  easily  let  down  as 
stirred  up.  An  answer  to  the  telegram  arrived  a  few  hours 
later,  just  in  time  to  spoil  the  day: 

You  gave  me  word  of  honor  as  gentleman  you  would  keep 
your  contract  better  look  it  over  again  you  will  report  for 
rehearsal  Monday  ten  A.M.  Odeon  Theater. 

REBEN. 

Winfield  stormed  at  Reben's  language  as  much  as  at 
the  situation: 

"How  dares  he  use  such  a  tone  to  you?  Are  you  his 
servant  or  are  you  my  wife?" 

"I'm  neither,  honey,"  Sheila  said,  very  meekly.  "I'm 
just  the  darned  old  public's  little  white  slave." 

"But  you  don't  belong  to  the  public.  You  belong  to 
me." 

"But  I  gave  him  my  word  first,  honey,"  Sheila  pleaded. 
"  If  it  were  just  an  ordinary  contract,  I  could  break  it,  but 
we  shook  hands  on  it  and  I  gave  him  my  word  as  a  gentle 
man.  If  I  broke  that  I  couldn't  be  trusted  to  keep  my 
word  to  you,  could  I,  dear?" 

It  was  a  puzzling  situation  for  Winfield.  How  could 
he  demand  that  the  woman  in  whose  hands  he  was  to  put 
his  honor  should  begin  their  compact  by  a  breach  of  honor? 

212 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

How  could  he  counsel  her  to  be  false  to  one  solemn  obliga 
tion  and  expect  her  to  be  true  to  another  assumed  later  ? 

Reben  followed  up  his  telegram  by  a  letter  of  protest 
against  Sheila's  bad  faith.  He  referred  to  the  expense  he 
had  been  at;  he  had  bought  a  great  foreign  play,  paying 
down  heavy  advance  royalties;  he  had  given  large  orders 
to  scene-painters,  lithographers,  and  printers,  and  had 
flooded  the  country  with  her  photographs  and  his  an 
nouncements.  The  cast  was  selected,  and  her  defection 
would  mean  cruelty  to  them  as  well  as  disloyalty  to  him. 

She  felt  helpless.  Winfield  was  helpless.  She  could 
only  mourn  and  he  rage.  They  were  like  two  lovers  who 
find  themselves  on  separate  ships. 

Winfield  went  back  to  his  father's  factory  in  a  fume  of 
wrath  and  grief.  Sheila  went  to  Reben's  factory  with  the 
meekness  of  a  mill-hand  carrying  a  dinner-pail. 

Sheila  made  a  poor  effort  to  smile  at  the  stage-door 
keeper,  who  lifted  his  hat  to  her  and  welcomed  her  as  if  she 
were  the  goddess  of  spring.  The  theater  had  been  lonely 
all  summer,  but  with  the  autumn  was  burgeoning  into 
vernal  activity. 

The  company  in  its  warm-weather  clothes  made  little 
spots  of  color  in  the  dimly  lighted  cave  of  the  stage. 
The  first  of  the  members  to  greet  Sheila  was  Floyd  Eldon. 

Eldon  seized  both  of  Sheila's  hands  and  wrung  them, 
and  his  heart  cried  aloud  in  his  soft  words:  "God  bless 
you,  Sheila.  We're  to  be  together  again  and  I'm  to  play 
your  lover  again.  You've  got  to  listen  to  me  telling  you 
eight  times  a  week  how  much  I — ' 

"Why,  Mr.  Batterson,  how  do  you  do?" 

The  director — Batterson  again — came  forward  with 
other  troupers,  old  friends  or  strangers.  Then  Reben 
called  to  Sheila  from  the  night  beyond  the  footlights. 
She  stumbled  and  groped  her  way  out  front  to  him,  and 
he  scolded  her  roundly  for  giving  him  such  a  scare. 

The  director's  voice  calling  the  company  together 

213 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

rescued  her  from  answering  Reben's  questions  as  to  the 
mysterious  "change  of  plans"  that  had  inspired  her 
telegram. 

"  I  guess  you  must  have  been  crazy  with  the  heat,"  he 
said. 

"Call  it  that,"  said  Sheila.  And  she  rejoined  the  com 
pany,  trying  not  to  be  either  uppish  or  'umble  in  her  new 
quality  as  the  star. 

The  author  of  the  play  was  a  Parisian  plutocrat  whose 
wares  had  traversed  all  the  oceans,  though  he  had  never 
ventured  across  the  English  Channel.  So  he  was  not 
present  to  read  the  play  aloud.  Ben  Prior,  the  adapter, 
was  a  meek  hack  afraid  of  his  own  voice,  and  Batterson 
was  not  inclined  to  show  the  company  how  badly  their 
director  read.  His  assistant  distributed  the  parts,  and 
the  company,  clustered  in  chairs,  read  in  turn  as  their 
cues  came. 

Each  had  hefted  his  own  part,  and  judged  it  by  the 
number  of  its  pages.  One  might  have  guessed  nearly  how 
many  pages  each  had  by  the  vivacity  or  the  dreariness 
of  his  attack. 

"Eight  sides!"  growled  old  Jaffer  as  he  counted  his 
brochure. 

It  is  a  saddening  thing  to  an  ambitious  actor  to  realize 
that  his  business  for  a  whole  season  is  to  be  confined  to 
brief  appearances  and  unimportant  speeches. 

People  congratulated  old  Jaffer  because  he  was  out  of 
the  play  after  the  first  act.  But,  cynic  as  he  was,  he  was 
not  glad  to  feel  that  he  would  be  in  his  street  mufti  when 
the  second  curtain  rose.  It  is  pleasant  to  play  truant, 
but  it  is  no  fun  to  be  turned  out  of  school  when  everybody 
else  is  in. 

Of  all  the  people  there  the  most  listless  was  the  one  who 
had  the  biggest,  bravest  rdle,  the  one  round  which  all  the 
others  revolved,  the  one  to  whom  all  the  others  "fed" 
the  words  that  brought  forth  the  witty  or  the  thrilling 
lines. 

214 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Sheila  had  to  be  reminded  of  her  cue  again  and  again. 
Batterson's  voice  recalled  her  as  from  a  distance. 

It  is  as  strange  as  anything  so  usual  and  immemorial 
can  be,  how  madly  lovers  can  love ;  how  much  agony  they 
can  extract  from  a  brief  separation;  what  bitter  terror 
they  can  distil  from  ordinary  events.  As  the  tormented 
girl  read  her  lines  and  later  walked  through  the  positions 
or  stood  about  in  the  maddening  stupidities  of  a  first  re 
hearsal,  she  had  actually  to  battle  with  herself  to  keep 
from  screaming  aloud: 

"I  don't  want  to  act!  I  don't  want  the  public  to  love 
me !  I  want  only  my  Bret !" 

The  temptation  to  hurl  the  part  in  Reben's  face,  to 
mock  the  petty  withes  of  contract  and  promise,  and  to  fly 
to  her  lover,  insane  as  it  was,  was  a  temptation  she  barely 
managed  to  fight  off. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

IN  a  similar  tempest  of  infinitely  much  ado  about  next 
to  nothing  the  distant  Bret  Winfield  was  browbeating 
himself  silently,  pleading  with  himself  not  to  disgrace  him 
self  by  running  away  from  his  loathsome  factory.     His 
father  needed  his  presence,  and  Sheila  needed  his  absence. 

But  gusts  of  desire  for  the  sight  of  her  swept  through 
him  like  manias.  He  would  try  to  reach  her  on  the  long 
distance  telephone.  At  the  theater,  where  there  was  as 
yet  no  one  in  the  box-office,  it  was  usually  impossible  to 
get  an  answer  or  to  get  a  message  delivered.  The  at 
tendants  would  as  soon  have  called  a  priest  from  mass 
as  an  actor  from  rehearsal.  Sometimes,  after  hours  of 
search  with  the  long-distance  probe,  he  would  find  Sheila 
at  the  hotel  and  they  would  pour  out  their  longings  across 
the  distance  till  strange  voices  broke  in  and  mocked  their 
sentimentalities  or  begged  them  to  get  off  the  wire.  It 
was  strange  to  be  eavesdropped  by  ghosts  whose  names  or 
even  whereabouts  one  could  never  know. 

Winfield's  mother  observed  her  son's  distress  and  in 
sisted  that  he  was  ill.  She  demanded  that  he  see  a  doctor ; 
it  might  be  some  lingering  fever  or  something  infectious. 
It  was  both,  but  there  is  no  inoculation,  no  antitoxin,  yet 
discovered  to  prevent  the  attack  on  a  normal  being. 
The  mumps,  scarlet  fever,  malaria,  typhoid  and  other 
ailments  have  their  serums,  but  love  has  none.  Light 
attacks  of  those  affections  procure  immunity,  but  not  of 
this. 

Winfield  finally  told  his  mother  what  his  malady  was. 
"Mother,  I'm  in  love — mad  crazy  about  a  girl." 

216 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Mrs.  Winfield  smiled.     "You  always  are." 

"  It's  real  this  time — " 

"It  always  was." 

"It  means  marriage." 

This  was  not  so  amusing. 

"Who  is  she?" 

"Nobody  you  ever  saw." 

This  was  reassuring.  Mrs.  Winfield  had  never  seen  any 
girl  in  town  quite  good  enough  for  her  daughter-in-law. 

Mrs.  Winfield  was  very  strict,  and  very  religious  in  so 
far  as  religion  is  concerned  with  trying  one's  neighbors  as 
well  as  oneself  by  very  lofty  and  very  inelastic  laws  of 
conduct. 

Bret  dreaded  to  tell  his  mother  who  Sheila  was  or  what 
she  was.  He  knew  her  opinion  of  the  stage  and  its  people. 
She  had  not  expressed  it  often  because  she  winced  even 
at  the  mention  of  hopelessly  improper  subjects  like  French 
literature,  the  theater,  classic  art,  playing  cards,  the  works 
of  Herbert  Spencer,  Ouida,  Huxley,  and  people  like  that. 

She  knew  so  little  of  the  theater  that  when  she  made 
him  tell  her  the  girl's  name,  "Sheila  Kemble"  meant 
nothing  to  her. 

Mrs.  Winfield  demanded  full  information  on  the  vital 
subject  of  her  son's  fiancee.  Bret  dodged  her  cross- 
examination  in  vain.  He  dilated  on  Sheila's  beauty,  her 
culture,  her  fascination,  her  devotion  to  him.  But  those 
were  details;  Mrs.  Winfield  wanted  to  know  the  important 
things : 

"What  church  does  she  belong  to?" 

"I  never  thought  to  ask  her." 

"Are  her  people  in  good  circumstances?" 

"Very!" 

"What  is  her  father's  business?" 

"Er — he's  a  professional  man." 

"Oh!    A  lawyer?" 

"No." 

"Doctor?" 
15  217 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"No." 

"What  then?" 

"Er — well — you  see — he's  very  successful.  He's  fa 
mous  in  his  line — makes  a  heap  of  money.  He  stands 
very  high  in  his  profession." 

"That's  good,  but  what  is  it?" 

"Why — he —  If  you  knew  him — you'd  be  proud  to 
have  him  for  a  father-in-law  or — a — whatever  relative 
he'd  be  to  you." 

"  No  doubt;  but  what  does  this  wonderful  man  do  for  a 
living?" 

"He's  an  actor." 

Mrs.  Winfield  would  have  screamed  the  word  in  echo, 
but  she  was  too  weak.  When  she  got  her  breath  she 
hardly  knew  which  of  the  myriad  objections  to  mention 
first. 

"An  actor!  You  are  engaged  to  the  daughter  of  an 
actor!  Why,  that's  nearly  as  bad  as  if  she  were  an  actress 
herself!" 

Bret  mumbled,  "Sheila  is  an  actress." 

Then  he  ran  for  a  glass  of  water. 

At  length  his  mother  rallied  sufficiently  to  nutter 
tenderly,  with  a  mother's  infinite  capacity  for  forgiving 
her  children — and  nobody  else: 

"Oh,  Bret!  Bret!  has  my  poor  boy  gone  and  fallen 
into  the  snare  of  some  adventuress — some  bad,  bad 
woman?" 

"Hush,  mother;  you  mustn't  speak  so.  Sheila  is  a 
good  girl,  the  best  in  the  world." 

"I  thought  you  said  she  was  an  actress." 

This  seemed  to  end  the  argument,  but  he  amazed  her 
by  proceeding:  "She  is!  and  a  fine  one,  the  best  actress  in 
the  country — in  the  world." 

When  Mrs.  Winfield  tried  to  prove  from  the  profundity 
of  her  ignorance  and  her  prejudice  that  an  actress  must 
be  doomed  he  put  his  hand  over  his  ears  till  she  stopped. 
Then  she  began  again: 

218 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"And  are  you  going  to  follow  this  angel  about,  or  is 
she  going  to  reform?" 

"She  can't  quit  just  now.  She  has  a  contract,  but  after 
this  season  she'll  stop,  and  then  we'll  get  married." 

Mrs.  Winfield  caught  at  this  eagerly.  "You're  not 
going  to  marry  her  at  once  then?" 

"  No.     I  wish  I  could,  but  she  can't  break  her  contract." 

Mrs.  Winfield  smiled  and  settled  back  with  relief. 
She  felt  as  if  an  earthquake  had  passed  by,  leaving 
her  alive  and  the  house  still  on  its  foundations.  She  knew 
Bret  and  she  was  sure  that  any  marriage  scheduled  for 
next  year  was  as  good  as  canceled  already. 

She  wanted  nothing  more  said  about  it.  Her  son's  re 
lations  with  an  actress  might  be  deplorable,  but,  fortu 
nately,  they  were  only  transient  and  need  not  be  discussed. 

But  Bret  would  not  permit  his  love  to  be  dismissed  with 
scorn.  He  insisted  that  he  adored  Sheila  and  that  she 
was  adorable.  He  produced  photographs  of  her,  and 
the  mother  could  not  deny  the  girl's  beauty.  But  she 
regarded  it  with  an  eye  of  such  hostility  that  she  found 
all  the  guiles  and  wiles  that  she  wanted  to  find  in  it. 

Bret  insisted  on  his  mother's  meeting  Sheila,  which  she 
refused  to  do.  She  announced  that  she  would  not  meet 
her  if  she  became  his  wife.  She  would  not  permit  the 
creature  to  sully  her  home.  She  warned  Bret  not  to 
mention  it  to  his  father,  for  the  old  man's  heart  was  weak 
and  he  was  discouraged  enough  over  the  conflict  with  the 
scales  trust.  The  shock  of  a  stage  scandal  might  kill  him. 

The  elder  Winfield  wandered  into  the  dispute  at  its 
height.  He  insisted  on  knowing  what  it  was.  His  wife 
tried  to  break  it  to  him  gently  and  nearly  drove  him  mad 
with  her  delay.  When  she  finally  reached  the  horrible 
disclosure  he  did  not  swoon;  he  just  laughed. 

"Is  that  all!  Mother,  where's  your  common  sense  of 
humor?  The  young  cub  has  been  sowing  some  wild 
oats  and  he's  trying  to  spare  your  feelings.  Think  nothing 
more  about  it.  Bret  is  going  to  settle  down  to  work,  and 

219 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

he  won't  have  time  for  much  more  foolishness.  And  now 
let's  drop  it.  Get  your  things  packed  and  mine,  for  I've 
got  to  run  over  to  New  York  for  a  board  of  directors' 
meeting  with  some  big  interests,  and  while  I'm  there  I'll 
just  go  to  a  real  doctor.  These  fossils  here  all  prescribe 
the  same  pills." 

Bret  glared  at  his  father  almost  contemptuously.  He 
was  heavily  disappointed  in  his  parents.  They  were  un 
able  to  rise  to  a  noble  occasion. 

An  inspiration  occurred  to  him.  Their  trip  to  New 
York  came  pat  to  his  necessities.  They  had  been  cold 
to  his  description  of  Sheila.  But  once  they  met  her, 
they  could  not  but  be  swept  off  their  feet — not  if  they  had 
his  blood  in  their  veins. 

He  sent  a  voluminous  telegram  to  Sheila  asking  her  to 
call  on  his  father  and  mother  and  make  them  hers.  It 
was  a  manlike  outrage  on  the  etiquette  of  calls,  but  Sheila 
cared  little  for  conventions  of  the  stupid  sort. 

Bret  could  not  persuade  his  mother  to  consent  to  meet 
Sheila  and  be  polite  until  he  implored  her  to  treat  Sheila 
at  least  with  the  humanity  deserved  by  a  Magdalen. 
That  magic  word  disarmed  Mrs.  Winfield  and  gave  her 
the  courage  of  a  missionary.  She  saw  that  it  was  plainly 
her  duty  to  see  the  misguided  creature.  She  might  per 
suade  her  to  change  her  ways.  Of  course  she  would  in 
cidentally  persuade  her  of  the  impossibility  of  a  marriage 
with  Bret.  She  would  appeal  to  the  girl's  better  nature, 
for  she  imagined  that  even  an  actress  was  not  totally  de 
praved. 

In  an  important  conference  with  her  husband  Mrs. 
Winfield  drew  up  a  splendid  campaign.  She  would  try  the 
effect  of  reason,  and,  if  she  failed,  her  husband  would  bring 
up  the  heavy  artillery. 

Mr.  Charles  Winfield  determined  to  do  his  share  by 
pointing  out  to  the  woman  that  Bret  had  no  income  and 
would  have  none.  This  would  scare  the  creature  away, 
for  she  was  undoubtedly  after  the  boy's  money.  What 

220 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

else  could  she  want?  If  worst  came  to  worst,  they  might 
even  buy  her  off.  A  few  thousand  dollars  would  be  a 
cheap  blackmail  to  pay  for  the  release  of  their  son. 

The  train  that  carried  the  elder  Winfields  to  the  ordeal 
of  meeting  with  the  threatening  invader  of  their  family 
was  due  in  New  York  in  the  forenoon. 

When  Charles  Winfield  bought  a  paper  to  glance  over 
it  during  his  dining-car  breakfast  he  was  pleased  to  find 
a  brief  mention  of  the  meeting  of  the  directors.  His  own 
name  was  included  in  small  type,  with  the  initials  wrong. 
Still,  it  was  pleasant  to  be  named  in  a  New  York  paper. 

As  he  turned  the  page  he  was  startled  to  see  a  familiar 
face  pop  up  before  him  as  if  with  a  cheerful  "Good  morn 
ing!"  He  studied  it.  It  was  familiar,  but  he  could  not 
place  it.  He  read  the  name  beneath — "Sheila  Kemble"! 

It  was  a  large  portrait  and  the  text  accompanying  it  was 
an  adroit  piece  of  press-agency.  Reben's  publicity  man, 
Starr  Coleman,  had  smuggled  past  the  dramatic  editor's 
jealous  guard  a  convincing  piece  of  fiction  purporting  to 
describe  Sheila's  opinions  on  woman  suffrage  as  it  would 
affect  the  home.  He  had  been  unable  to  get  at  Sheila 
during  rehearsals  and  he  had  concocted  the  interview  out 
of  his  own  head. 

Winfield  passed  the  paper  across  to  his  wife.  Both  were 
decidedly  shaken.  Winfield's  logical  mind  automatically 
worked  out  a  problem  in  ratio.  If  he  himself  felt  im 
portant  because  a  New  York  newspaper  included  his  name 
in  a  list  of  arrivals,  how  important  was  Sheila,  who  re 
ceived  half  a  column  of  quotation  and  a  photograph? 

Furthermore,  Sheila's  name  was  coupled  with  that  of  a 
prominent  woman  whose  social  distinction  was  nation 
wide. 

Mrs.  Winfield  fetched  forth  her  spectacles,  read  Sheila's 
dictum  carefully  and  with  some  awe.  There  were  two  or 
three  words  in  it  that  Mrs.  Winfield  could  not  understand 
— neither  could  Sheila  when  she  read  it.  Starr  Coleman 

221 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

liked  big  words.  But  in  any  case  the  interview  scared 
Mrs.  Winfield  out  of  her  scheme  to  play  the  missionary. 
By  the  same  token  Mr.  Winfield  decided  not  to  offer 
Sheila  a  bribe. 

Their  plans  were  in  complete  disarray  when  they  reached 
New  York. 

They  had  not  been  settled  long  in  their  hotel  when  the 
telephone-bell  rang. 

Mrs.  Winfield  answered  the  call,  since  her  husband  was 
belatedly  shaving  himself. 

The  telephone  operator  said,  "M'  Skemble  to  speak  to 
M'  Swinfield." 

Mrs.  Winfield's  heart  began  to  skip.  She  answered, 
feebly,  "This  is  Mrs.  Winfield." 

The  operator  snapped,  "Go  ahead,"  and  another  voice 
appeared,  putting  extraordinary  music  into  a  lyrical 
"Hello!" 

Mrs.  Winfield  answered:  "Hello!  This  is  Mrs.  Win- 
field." 

"Oh,  how  do  you  do?  This  is  Mrs.  Kemble,  Sheila's 
mother.  Your  son  asked  her  to  call  you  up  as  soon  as  you 
got  in,  but  she  is  rehearsing  and  asked  me  to." 

"That's  very  n-nice  of  you." 

"Why,  thank  you.  Your  son  probably  explained  to 
you  that  Sheila  is  a  horribly  busy  young  woman.  I  know 
you  are  busy,  too.  You'll  be  doing  a  lot  of  shopping,  I 
presume.  I  should  like  to  call  on  you  as  one  helpless 
parent  on  another,  but  my  husband  and  I  are  leaving  in 
a  day  or  two  for  one  of  our  awful  tours  to  the  Coast.  The 
ocean  is  so  beautiful  that  I  wondered  if  you  wouldn't  be 
willing  to  run  out  here  and  take  dinner  with  us  to-night." 

Mrs.  Winfield's  wits  were  so  scattered  that  she  had  not 
the  strength  even  to  improvise  another  engagement.  She 
was  not  an  agile  liar.  She  murmured,  feebly:  "It  would 
be  very  nice.  Thank  you." 

Then  the  irresistible  Polly  Farren  voice  purred  on: 
"That's  splendid!  We'll  send  our  car  for  you.  It's  not 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

a  long  run  out  here,  and  the  car  can  bring  Sheila  out  at  the 
same  time.  You  can  have  a  little  visit  together." 

"That  would  be  very  nice.  Thank  you,"  Mrs.  Win- 
field  babbled. 

"One  more  thing,  if  I  may,"  Polly  chanted.  "Our 
town  car  is  in  New  York.  It  took  Sheila  in,  you  know. 
The  driver  has  nothing  at  all  to  do  till  five.  My  husband 
says  he  would  be  ever  so  pleased  if  you'd  let  me  put  it  at 
your  disposal.  Please  call  it  your  very  own  while  you're 
in  the  city,  won't  you?  The  chauffeur  is  quite  reliable, 
really." 

Poor  Mrs.  Winfield  could  only  wail,  "Hold  the  wire  a 
moment,  please." 

She  was  unutterably  miserable.  She  dropped  the  re 
ceiver  and  called  her  lather-jawed  husband  in  conference. 
They  whispered  like  two  counterfeiters  with  the  police 
at  the  door.  They  could  see  no  way  of  escape  without 
brutality. 

Mrs.  Winfield  took  up  the  receiver  and  wailed,  "My 
husband  says  it  is  very  nice  of  you  and  of  course  we 
accept." 

"Oh,  that's  splendid!"  throbbed  in  her  ear.  "I'll 
telephone  the  man  to  call  for  you  at  once.  Good-by  till 
dinner,  then.  Good-by." 

Mr.  Winfield  glared  at  his  wife,  and  she  looked  away, 
sighing: 

"She  has  a  right  nice  voice,  anyway." 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE  car  was  a  handsomer  car  than  their  own,  and  in 
the  quietest  taste.  Polly  had  somewhat  softened 
the  truth  in  the  matter  of  its  tender.  Roger  had  pro 
tested  mightily  against  offering  the  car  to  the  Winfields, 
but  Sheila  and  Polly  had  taken  it  away  from  him. 

He  had  resisted  their  scheme  for  the  dinner  with  even 
greater  vigor,  but  Polly  mocked  him  and  gave  her  orders. 
Seeing  himself  committed  to  the  plot,  he  said,  "Well,  if 
we've  got  to  have  this  try-out  performance  we'll  make  a 
production  of  it  with  complete  change  of  costumes,  cal 
ciums,  and  extra  people." 

Polly  and  Roger  did  not  approve  of  Bret  any  more  than 
the  Winfields  approved  of  Sheila;  but  they  resolved  to 
jolt  the  Philistines  while  they  were  at  it. 

After  a  day  in  the  Kemble  limousine  the  Winfields 
picked  up  Sheila,  who  had  been  spending  an  hour  on  her 
toilet,  though  she  apologized  for  the  wreckage  of  re 
hearsals. 

She  dazzled  both  of  them  with  her  beauty.  She  did 
most  of  the  talking,  but  permitted  restful  silences  for 
meditation.  The  Winfields  were  as  shy  and  as  staring  as 
children.  It  was  the  first  time  they  had  been  so  close  to 
an  actress. 

The  Kemble  cottage  on  Long  Island  was  a  pleasant 
enough  structure  at  any  time,  but  at  night  under  a  natter 
ing  moon  it  looked  twice  its  importance. 

The  dinner  was  elaborate  and  the  guests  impressive. 
Roger  apologized  for  the  presence  of  a  famous  millionaire, 
Tilton,  his  wife,  and  their  visitor  Lady  Braithwaite.  He 

224 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

said  that  they  had  been  invited  before,  though  it  would 
have  been  more  accurate  to  say  that  they  had  been  im 
plored  at  the  last  moment,  and  had  consented  because 
Roger  said  he  needed  them. 

Sheila  never  acted  harder.  She  never  suffered  worse 
from  stage-fright  and  never  concealed  it  more  completely. 
She  suffered  both  as  author  and  as  actor.  Her  little  comedy 
was,  like  Hamlet's  brief  tragedy,  produced  for  an  ulterior 
purpose.  Which  it  accomplished. 

The  Kembles  had  succeeded  in  shifting  the  burden  of 
discomfort  to  their  observers.  The  Winfields  felt  hope 
lessly  small  town.  Polly  and  Sheila  were  exquisitely 
gracious,  and  Lady  Braithwaite  kept  my-dearing  Polly, 
while  the  millionaire  called  Kemble  by  his  first  name. 
Roger  set  old  Winfield  roaring  over  his  stories  and,  as  if 
quite  casually,  he  let  fall  occasional  allusions  to  the 
prosperity  of  prosperous  stage  people.  He  referred  to  the 
fact  that  a  certain  actress,  "poor  Nina  Fielding,"  had 
"had  a  bad  season,  and  cleared  only  sixty  thousand 
dollars." 

Tilton  exclaimed,  "Impossible!  that's  equivalent  to  six 
per  cent,  on  a  million  dollars." 

Roger  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Well,  there  are  others 
that  make  more,  and  if  Nina  is  worth  a  million,  Sheila  is 
worth  two  of  her.  And  she'll  prove  it,  too.  And  why 
shouldn't  actors  get  rich?  They  do  the  world  as  much 
good  as  your  manufacturers  of  shoes  and  electricity  and 
automobiles.  Why  shouldn't  they  make  as  much  money  ?" 

Tilton  said:  "Well,  perhaps  they  should,  but  they 
haven't  done  so  till  recently.  It's  a  big  change  from  the 
time  when  you  actors  were  rated  as  beggars  and  vaga 
bonds;  you'll  admit  that  much,  won't  you?" 

He  had  touched  Kemble  on  a  sensitive  spot,  a  subject 
that  he  had  fumed  over  and  studied.  Roger  was  always 
ready  to  deliver  a  lecture  on  the  topic.  He  blustered  now : 

"That  old  idiocy!  Do  you  believe  it,  too?  Don't  you 
know  that  the  law  that  branded  actors  as  vagrants  re- 

225 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

ferred  only  to  actors  without  a  license  and  not  enrolled 
in  an  authorized  company?  At  that  very  time  the  chief 
noblemen  had  their  own  troupes  and  the  actors  were  en 
tertained  royally  in  castles  and  palaces. 

"For  a  time  the  monks  and  nuns  used  to  give  plays, 
and  there  was  a  female  playwright  who  was  a  nun  in  the 
tenth  century.  The  Church  sometimes  fought  against 
the  theater  during  the  dark  ages,  but  so  it  fought  against 
sculpture  and  painting  the  human  form.  Actors  were  for 
bidden  Christian  burial  once  and  were  treated  as  outlaws, 
but  so  were  the  Catholics  in  Protestant  countries  and 
Protestants  in  Catholic  regions,  and  Presbyterians  and 
Episcopalians  in  each  other's  realms,  and  Quakers  in 
Boston. 

"The  Puritans  did  not  believe  in  the  theater  any  more 
than  the  theater  believed  in  the  Puritans,  and  there  was  a 
period  in  England  when  plays  had  to  be  given  secretly  in 
private  houses.  But  what  does  that  prove?  Religious 
services  had  to  be  given  the  same  way;  and  political 
meetings. 

"There  are  plenty  of  people  who  hate  the  theater  to-day. 
It  always  will  have  enemies — like  the  other  sciences  and 
arts. 

"But  one  thing  is  sure.  Wherever  actors  have  been 
permitted  at  all,  they  have  always  gone  with  the  best 
people.  Several  English  actors  have  been  knighted  re 
cently,  but  that's  nothing  new.  The  actor  Roscius  was 
knighted  at  Rome  in  50  B.C.  In  Greece  they  carved  the 
successful  actors'  names  in  stone. 

"We  made  big  money  then,  too.  The  actor  ^sopus — 
Cicero's  friend — left  his  good-for-nothing  son  so  much 
money  that  the  cub  dissolved  a  pearl  in  vinegar  and  drank 
it.  He  tossed  off  what  would  amount,  in  our  money,  to 
a  forty-thousand-dollar  cocktail. 

"In  the  Roman  Empire  actors  like  Paris  stood  so  high 
at  court  that  Juvenal  said,  '  If  you  want  to  get  the  royal 
favor  ask  an  actor,  not  a  lord.'  When  Josephus  went  to 

226 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Rome  to  plead  for  the  lives  of  some  priests,  a  Jewish  actor 
named  Aliturus  introduced  him  to  Nero  and  his  empress 
and  got  him  his  petition.  It  seems  funny  to  think  of  a 
Jewish  actor  at  the  court  of  Nero.  The  Roman  emperor 
Justinian  married  an  actress  and  put  her  on  the  throne 
beside  him. 

"In  Italy  after  the  Renaissance  one  of  the  actresses — I 
forget  her  name — was  so  much  honored  that  when  she  came 
to  a  town  she  was  received  with  a  salute  of  cannon. 

"Louis  XIV.  loved  Moliere,  stood  godfather  to  his  child, 
and  suggested  a  scene  for  one  of  his  plays.  One  of 
Napoleon's  few  intimate  friends  was  the  actor  Talma. 

"  David  Garrick  was  in  high  favor  at  court  and  he  sold 
his  interest  in  Drury  Lane,  when  he  retired,  for  one  hun 
dred  and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars.  He  is  buried  in 
Westminster  Abbey. 

"And  if  I  may  speak  of  my  own  ancestors,  Mrs.  Siddons 
was  one  of  the  most  highly  esteemed  and  irreproachable 
women  of  her  time.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  was  proud  to 
paint  her  as  the  Tragic  Muse  and  old  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson 
wrote  his  autograph  on  the  canvas  along  the  edge  of  her 
robe  because  he  said  he  wanted  his  name  to  go  down  to 
posterity  on  the  hem  of  her  garment. 

"Her  brother,  John  Philip  Kemble,  was  so  successful 
that  he  bought  a  sixth  share  in  Covent  Garden  for  over 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  When  it  burned  down  it 
would  have  ruined  him  if  the  Duke  of  Northumberland 
had  not  made  him  a  loan  of  fifty  thousand  dollars.  And 
later  he  refused  repayment. 

"Take  an  actress  of  our  own  time,  Sarah  Bernhardt. 
What  woman  in  human  history  has  had  more  honor,  or 
made  more  money  ?  Or  take — " 

Polly  felt  it  time  to  intervene.  "For  Heaven's  sake, 
ring  down!  You're  not  at  Chautauqua,  you  know." 

Kemble  started  and  blinked  like  a  sleep-walker  abruptly 
wakened.  "I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said.  "I  was  riding 
my  hobby  and  he  ran  away." 

227 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

The  Winfields  were  plentifully  impressed  and  Mrs.  Win- 
field  completely  overwhelmed  when  Lady  Braithwaite  said : 

"He's  quite  right,  my  dear.  There's  no  question  of  the 
social  position  of  the  stage.  So  many  actresses  have 
married  into  our  peerage  that  you  can't  tell  which  is  the 
annex  of  which ;  and  no  end  of  young  peers  are  going  on  the 
stage.  They  can't  act,  but  it  keeps  them  out  of  mischief 
in  a  way.  And  I  can't  see  that  stage-marriages  are  any 
less  permanent  than  the  others.  Can  you?  I  mean  to 
say,  I've  known  most  charming  cases.  My  poor  friend 
the  Duchess  of  Stonehenge  had  a  son  who  was  a  hopeless 
little  cad  and  rotter — and  he  married  an  actress — you 
know  the  one  I  mean — from  the  Halls  she  was,  too.  And 
you  know  she's  made  a  man  of  him — a  family  man,  too, 
she  has,  really!  And  she's  the  most  devoted  of  mothers. 
Really  she  is!" 

Somehow  the  character  Lady  Braithwaite  gave  the  stage 
made  more  impression  on  Mrs.  Winfield  than  all  of  Roger's 
history. 

On  the  long,  late  ride  back  to  their  hotel  the  old  couple 
were  meek,  quite  whipped-out.  They  had  come  to  redeem 
an  actress  from  perdition  or  bribe  her  not  to  drag  their  son 
to  her  own  level ;  they  returned  with  their  ears  full  of  stage 
glories  and  a  bewildered  feeling  that  an  alliance  with  the 
Kemble  family  would  be  the  making  of  them. 

As  the  train  bore  them  homeward,  however,  their  old 
prejudices  resumed  sway.  They  began  to  feel  resentful. 
If  Sheila  had  been  more  lowly,  suppliant,  and  helpless 
they  might  have  stooped  to  her.  But  a  daughter-in-law 
who  could  earn  over  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year  was  a 
dangerous  thing  about  the  house.  Sheila's  scenario  had 
worked  just  a  little  too  well. 

Young  Winfield  met  his  parents  at  the  train  and 
searched  their  faces  eagerly.  They  looked  guilty  and 
almost  pouting.  They  said  nothing  till  they  were  in  their 
own  car  —  it  looked  shabby  after  the  Kemble  turnout. 
Then  Bret  pleaded : 

228 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"Well,  what  do  you  think  of  Sheila?" 

"She's  very  nice,"  said  his  mother,  stingily. 

"Is  that  all?  She  wrote  me  that  you  were  wonderful. 
She  said  my  father  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished- 
looking  men  she  ever  saw,  and  as  for  my  mother,  she  was 
simply  beautiful,  so  fashionable  and  aristocratic — an  an 
gel,  she  called  you,  mother." 

One  may  see  through  these  things,  but  they  can't  be 
resisted.  As  Roger  Kemble  used  to  put  it:  "Say  what 
you  will,  a  bouquet  beats  a  brickbat  for  comfort  no  matter 
what  direction  it  comes  from." 

The  Winfields  blushed  with  pride  and  warmed  over  their 
comments  on  Sheila.  In  fact,  they  went  so  far  as  to  say 
that  she  would  never  give  up  the  fame  and  fortune  and 
admiration  that  were  waiting  for  her,  just  to  marry  a 
common  manufacturer's  son. 

This  threw  the  fear  of  love  into  Bret  and  made  him 
more  than  ever  frantic  to  see  Sheila  and  be  reassured  or 
put  out  of  his  misery.  There  was  no  restraining  him. 
His  father  protested  that  he  was  needed  at  home.  But  it 
was  mating-season  with  the  young  man,  and  parents  were 
only  in  his  way,  as  their  parents  had  been  in  theirs. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

BRET  telegraphed  Sheila  that  he  was  coming  to  New 
York  to  see  her.     She  telegraphed  back: 

Awfully  love  see  you  but  hideously  busy  rehearsals  souls 
devotion. 

These  poor  telegraph  operators !  The  honey  they  have 
to  transmit  must  fairly  stick  to  the  wires  and  gum  up  the 
keys. 

Winfield  determined  to  go,  anyway — and  to  surprise 
her.  He  set  out  without  warning  and  flew  to  the  theater 
as  soon  as  he  reached  New  York.  The  tip-loving  door 
man  declined  so  fiercely  to  take  his  card  in  that  he  fright 
ened  the  poor  swain  out  of  the  proffer  of  a  bribe. 

While  Winfield  loitered  irresolutely  near  the  stage 
entrance  an  actor  strolled  out  to  snatch  a  few  puffs  of  a 
cigarette  while  he  was  not  needed.  Winfield  was  about 
to  ask  him  to  tell  Miss  Kemble  that  Mr.  Winfield  was 
waiting  for  her.  He  saw  that  the  actor  was  Eldon. 

He  dodged  behind  the  screen  of  a  fire-escape  from 
the  gallery  and  slunk  away  unobserved.  There  was  no 
fire-escape  in  his  soul  from  the  conflagration  of  jealousy 
that  shot  up  at  the  sight  of  his  rival,  and  the  thought  that 
Eldon  was  spending  his  days  in  Sheila's  company,  while 
her  affianced  lover  gnashed  his  teeth  outside. 

He  hung  about  like  Mary's  lamb  for  meekness  and  like 
Red  Riding-Hood's  wolf  for  wrath.  He  would  wait  for 
Sheila  to  come  out  for  lunch.  Hours  passed.  He  saw 
Eldon  dash  across  the  street  to  a  little  restaurant  and 

230 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

return  with  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  bundle  of  sandwiches. 
Ye  gods,  he  was  feeding  her ! 

With  all  a  lover's  fiendish  ingenuity  in  devising  tor 
tures  for  himself,  Winfield  transported  his  soul  from  the 
vat  of  boiling  oil  to  the  rack  and  the  cell  of  Little  Ease  and 
back  again.  He  imagined  the  most  ridiculous  scenes  in 
the  theater  and  suspected  Sheila  of  such  treacheries  that 
if  he  had  really  believed  them  he  would  surely  have  been 
cured  of  his  love. 

He  saw  that  a  policeman  was  regarding  him  with  sus 
picion,  and  since  he  was  faint  with  torture  on  an  empty 
stomach,  he  went  to  a  restaurant  to  kill  time.  When  he 
returned  he  waited  an  hour  before  he  ventured  to  steal 
upon  the  stage-door  keeper  again.  Then  he  learned 
that  the  rehearsal  had  been  dismissed  two  hours  before. 
Aching  with  rage,  he  taxicabbed  to  Sheila's  hotel.  She 
had  not  returned.  Out  riding  with  Eldon  somewhere  no 
doubt! 

He  went  to  the  railroad  station.  He  would  escape  from 
the  hateful  town  where  there  was  nothing  but  perfidy 
and  vice.  He  called  up  the  hotel  to  bid  Sheila  a  bitter 
farewell.  Pennock  answered  and  informed  him  that 
Sheila  had  been  at  the  dressmaker's  all  afternoon  and  was 
just  returned,  so  dead  that  Pennock  had  made  her  take  a 
nap.  She  shouldn't  be  disturbed  till  she  woke,  no,  not 
for  a  dozen  Winfields,  especially  as  she  had  an  evening 
rehearsal. 

Winfield  returned  to  her  hotel  and  hung  about  like  a 
process-server.  He  waited  in  the  lobby,  reading  the 
evening  papers,  one  after  another,  from  "ears"  to  tail. 
He  telephoned  up  to  Pennock  till  she  forbade  the  operator 
to  ring  the  bell  again. 

The  big  fellow  was  almost  hysterical  when  a  hall-boy 
called  him  to  the  telephone-booth.  He  heard  Sheila's 
voice.  She  was  fairly  squealing  with  delight  at  his 
presence.  Instantly  chaos  became  a  fresh  young  world, 
all  Eden. 

231 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Sheila  had  just  learned  of  Winfield's  arrival.  She 
promised  to  be  down  as  soon  as  she  had  scrubbed  the  sleep 
out  of  her  eyes.  She  invited  him  to  take  her  to  dinner  at 
Claremont  before  she  went  back  to  "the  morgue,"  as  she 
called  the  theater — and  meant  it,  for  she  was  fagged  out. 
Everything  was  wrong  with  the  play,  the  cast,  and,  worst 
of  all,  with  her  costumes. 

There  was  further  tantalism  for  Bret  in  the  greeting 
in  the  hotel  lobby.  A  formal  hand-clasp  and  a  more  ardent 
eye-clasp  were  all  they  dared  venture.  The  long  bright 
summer  evening  made  it  impossible  to  steal  kisses  in  the 
taxicab,  except  a  few  snapshots  caught  as  they  ran  under 
the  elevated  road.  But  they  held  hands  and  wrung 
fingers  and  talked  rapturous  nonsense. 

The  view  of  the  Hudson  was  supremely  beautiful  from 
the  restaurant  piazza,  until  Reben  arrived  with  his  old 
Diana  Rhys  and  the  two  of  them  filled  the  landscape  like 
another  Storm  King  and  Dunderberg. 

Mrs.  Rhys  had  for  some  time  resented  Reben's 
interest  in  Sheila  and  had  made  life  infernal  for  him. 
She  began  on  him  at  the  table.  He  was  furious  with 
humiliation  and  swarthier  with  jealousy  of  the  unknown 
occupant  of  the  chair  opposite  Sheila. 

Sheila  explained  to  Winfield  in  hasty  asides  that  she 
was  in  hot  water.  Reben  did  not  like  to  have  her  appear 
in  public  places  at  all,  and  then  only  with  the  strictest 
chaperonage. 

Winfield  sniffed  at  such  Puritanism  from  him. 

"It  isn't  that,  honey,"  Sheila  said,  "it's  business. 
He  says  that  actresses,  of  all  people,  should  lead  secluded 
lives  because — who  wants  to  pay  two  dollars  to  see  a 
woman  who  can  be  seen  all  over  town  for  nothing?  He's 
planning  a  regular  convent  life  for  me,  and  he's  shutting 
down  on  all  the  personal  publicity.  I'm  glad  of  it — for  I 
really  belong  to  you. 

"Reben  wants  me  to  be  especially  strict  because  I've 
got  to  play  innocent  young  girls,  and  he  says  that  many 

232 


a  promising  actress  has  killed  herself  commercially  with 
the  nice  people,  by  thinking  that  it  was  none  of  the  public's 
business  what  she  did  outside  the  theater.  Of  course  it 
isn't  really  their  business  in  a  way,  but  the  public  make  it 
so. 

"And  you  can't  wonder  at  it.  I  know  I'm  not  prudish 
or  narrow,  but  when  I  see  a  play  where  a  character  is 
supposed  to  be  terribly  ignorant  and  pathetic  and  trusting, 
it  sort  of  hurts  the  illusion  when  I  know  that  the  actress 
is  really  a  hateful  cat  who  has  broken  up  a  dozen  homes. 

"So  you  see  Reben's  right.  He'd  come  over  here  now 
and  send  me  home  if  old  Rhys  would  let  him.  He's  dying 
to  know  who  you  are.  But  of  course  I  won't  tell  him." 

This  did  not  comfort  Winfield  in  the  least.  It  angered 
him,  too,  to  think  of  Reben  as  right  about  anything; 
and  he  felt  no  thanks  to  him  for  his  counsels  of  prudence. 
When  it  is  insisted  too  strenuously  that  honesty  is  good 
policy,  even  honesty  becomes  suspect. 

The  tete-a-tete  and  the  dinner  were  ruined  and  it  was 
not  yet  dark  enough  on  the  way  back  to  permit  any  of  the 
embraces  and  kisses  that  Winfield  was  famished  for.  He 
took  no  pleasure  even  in  the  spectacular  sunset  along  the 
Hudson — miles  of  assorted  crimsons  in  the  sky,  with  the 
cool  green  Palisades  as  a  barrier  between  the  radiant 
heavens  and  the  long  panel  of  the  mirror-river  that  told 
the  sky  how  beautiful  it  was. 

Winfield  was  completely  dissatisfied  with  life.  It  was 
peculiarly  distressing  to  be  so  deeply  in  love  with  so  dear  a 
girl  so  deeply  in  love  in  turn,  and  to  have  her  profession 
and  its  necessities  brandished  like  a  flaming  sword  between 
them. 

This  experience  is  likely  to  play  an  increasing  part 
in  the  romances  of  the  future  as  more  and  more  women 
claim  a  larger  and  larger  share  of  life  outside  the  home. 
Existence  has  always  been  a  process  of  readjustments,  but 
certainly  at  no  time  in  history  has  there  been  such  a 
revolution  as  this  in  the  relations  of  man  and  woman. 

16  233 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

From  now  on  numbers  of  husbands  will  learn  what  wives 
have  endured  for  ages  in  waiting  for  the  spouse  to  come 
home  from  the  shop. 

The  usual  pattern  of  emotion  was  almost  ludicrously 
reversed  when  Winfield  took  his  sweetheart  to  her  factory 
and  left  her  at  the  door  to  resume  her  overtime  night-work, 
while  he  idled  about  in  the  odious  leisure  of  a  housekeeper. 

Winfield  hated  the  situation  with  all  the  ferocity  of  a 
lover  denied,  and  all  the  indignation  of  an  old-fashioned 
youth  who  believed  in  taking  the  woman  of  his  choice 
under  his  wing  to  protect  her  from  the  world. 

But  he  had  chosen  a  girl  who  proposed  to  conquer  the 
world  and  who  would  find  the  shadow  under  his  wing  too 
close.  He  felt  himself  as  feeble  and  misallied  as  a  ring 
dove  mated  with  a  falcon.  She  was  an  artist,  a  public 
idol,  while  he  at  best  was  as  obscure  as  a  vice-president; 
he  was  only  the  indolent  heir  of  a  self-made  man. 

He  dawdled  about,  revolting  against  his  dependency, 
till  Sheila  finished  her  rehearsal.  Then  she  met  him  and 
they  rode  through  the  moonlit  Park.  She  loved  him  im 
mensely,  but  she  was  so  exhausted  that  she  fell  asleep  in 
his  arm.  He  kissed  the  wan  little  moon  of  her  face  as  it 
lay  back  on  his  shoulder.  He  loved  her  with  all  his  might. 
He  loved  her  enough  to  take  her  home  to  her  hotel  and 
surrender  her  to  herself  while  he  moped  away  to  his  own 
hotel. 

The  next  day  it  was  the  same  story  except  that  she 
promised  to  ask  for  a  respite  at  the  luncheon  hour  and 
meet  him  at  a  restaurant  near  the  theater.  The  appoint 
ment  was  for  one  o'clock.  He  waited  until  two-thirty 
before  she  appeared.  And  then  she  had  only  time  to 
tell  him  that  Reben  had  given  her  a  merciless  scolding 
for  her  escapade  of  the  evening  before. 

Winfield  expressed  his  desire  to  punch  Reben's  head, 
and  Sheila  rejoiced  at  having  a  champion,  even  though 
(or  perhaps  because)  the  champion  claimed  her  more 
exclusively  than  Reben  did. 

234 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Bret  had  to  endure  another  dismal  wait  until  dinner, 
and  then  there  was  again  an  evening  rehearsal.  The 
time  of  production  was  approaching  and  Batterson  was 
growing  demoniac.  After  the  rehearsal  Bret  from  across 
the  street  watched  all  the  other  members  of  the  company 
leave  the  theater.  Even  Eldon  came  forth,  but  not  Sheila. 

Another  hour  Bret  spent  of  watchful  waiting,  and  then 
she  appeared  with  Reben  and  Prior.  They  had  been 
having  a  consultation  and  a  quarrel,  and  they  continued 
it  to  the  hotel,  Sheila  not  daring  to  shake  them  off. 
Winfield  shadowed  them  along  the  street,  and  waited 
outside  till  they  left  the  hotel;  then  he  made  haste  to 
find  Sheila. 

She  was  distraught  between  the  demands  of  her  play 
and  her  lover.  Revisions  had  been  made  and  she  had  a 
new  scene  to  learn  and  a  new  interpretation  of  the  character 
to  achieve  before  morning.  The  only  crumb  of  good  news 
was  the  fact  that  Reben  was  to  be  out  of  town  the  next 
day  and  she  could  sneak  Winfield  in  to  watch  a  rehearsal, 
if  he  wanted  to  come. 

He  wanted  to  exceedingly.  It  was  one  way  of  borrowing 
trouble. 

He  stole  in  at  the  front  of  the  house  and  sat  in  the  empty 
dark,  unobserved,  but  not  unobserving.  He  had  the 
wretched  privilege  of  watching  Eldon  make  love  to  Sheila 
and  take  her  in  his  arms.  A  dozen  embraces  were  tried 
before  Batterson  could  find  just  the  attitude  to  suit  him. 
And  that  did  not  suit  Sheila. 

Partly  because  it  is  almost  impossible  for  a  man  to 
show  a  woman  how  she  would  act,  and  partly  because 
Sheila  could  almost  see  Bret's  gaze  blazing  from  the  dark 
like  a  wolf's  eyes,  she  was  incapable  of  achieving  the 
effect  Batterson  wanted. 

The  stage-manager  was  reaching  his  ugly  phase,  and 
after  leaving  Sheila  in  Eldon's  clasp  for  ten  minutes  while 
he  tried  her  arms  in  various  poses,  all  of  them  awkward, 
he  walked  to  the  table  where  Prior  sat  and  muttered: 

235 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"  Her  mother  would  have  grasped  it  in  a  minute.  Isn't 
it  funny  that  the  children  of  great  actors  are  always 
damned  fools?" 

The  whole  company  overheard  and  Winfield  rose  to  his 
feet  in  a  fury.  But  he  heard  Sheila  say  to  Eldon,  for 
Batterson's  benefit: 

"Why,  I  didn't  know  that  Mr.  Batterson's  parents  were 
great  actors,  did  you?" 

Batterson  caught  this  as  Sheila  intended,  and  he  flew 
into  one  of  the  passions  that  were  to  be  expected  about  this 
time.  He  slammed  the  manuscript  on  the  table  and  made 
the  usual  bluff  of  walking  out.  Sheila  did  not  follow. 
She  sank  into  a  chair  and  made  signals  to  the  invisible 
Bret  not  to  interfere,  as  she  knew  he  was  about  to  do. 

He  understood  her  meaning  and  restrained  his  impulse 
to  climb  over  the  footlights  once  more. 

Batterson  fought  it  out  with  himself,  then  came  back, 
and  with  a  sigh  of  heavenly  resignation  resumed  the 
rehearsal.  The  company  was  refreshed  by  the  divertise- 
ment  and  Sheila  and  Batterson  were  as  amiable  as  two 
warriors  after  a  truce.  The  embrace  was  speedily  agreed 
upon. 

Sheila  met  Bret  at  luncheon,  and  now  she  had  him  on 
her  hands.  He  was  ursine  with  clumsy  wrath. 

"To  think  that  my  wife-to-be  must  stand  up  there  and 
let  a  mucker  like  that  stage-manager  swear  at  her !  Good 
Lord!  I'll  break  his  head!" 

Sheila  wondered  how  long  she  would  be  able  to  endure 
these  alternating  currents,  but  she  put  off  despair  and 
cooed : 

"Now,  honey,  you  can't  go  around  breaking  all  the 
heads  in  town.  You  mustn't  think  anything  of  it.  Poor 
old  Batty  is  excited,  and  so  are  we  all.  It's  just  a  business 
dispute.  It's  always  this  way  when  the  production  is 
near." 

"And  are  you  going  to  let  that  fellow  Eldon  fondle  you 
like  that?" 

236 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"Why,  honey  dear,  it's  in  the  manuscript!" 

"Then  you  can  cut  it  out.  I  won't  have  it,  I  tell  you! 
What  kind  of  a  dog  do  you  think  I  am  that  I'm  to  let 
other  men  hug  my  wife?" 

"  But  it's  only  in  public,  dearest,  that  he  hugs  me." 

At  the  recurrence  of  this  extraordinary  logic  Winfield 
simply  opened  his  mouth  like  a  fish  on  land.  He  was 
suffocating  with  too  much  air. 

Sheila  and  he  kept  silence  a  moment.  They  were  re 
membering  the  somewhat  similar  dispute  in  another  moon 
lit  scene,  at  Clinton.  Only  then  he  was  an  audacious 
flirter;  now  he  was  a  conservative  fiance.  Her  logic  was 
the  same,  but  he  had  veered  to  the  opposite  side.  She 
murmured,  dolefully: 

"You  don't  understand  the  stage  very  well,  do  you, 
dear?" 

"No,  I  don't!"  he  growled.  "And  I  don't  want  to. 
It's  no  place  for  a  woman.  You've  got  to  give  it  up." 

"I've  promised  to,  honey,  as  soon  as  I  can." 

"Well,  in  the  mean  while,  you've  got  to  cut  out  that 
hugging  business  with  Eldon — or  anybody  else.  I  won't 
have  it,  that's  all!" 

To  her  intense  amazement  Sheila  was  flattered  by  this 
overweening  tyranny.  She  rejoiced  at  her  lover's  wealth 
of  jealousy,  the  one  supreme  proof  of  true  love  in  a  woman's 
mind,  a  proof  that  is  weightier  than  any  tribute  of  praise 
or  jewelry  or  toil  or  sacrifice. 

She  said  she  would  see  if  the  embrace  could  be  omitted. 
The  next  day  Reben  sat  in  the  orchestra  and  she  went 
down  to  sit  at  his  side.  She  did  not  mention  Winfield's 
part  in  the  matter,  of  course,  but  craftily  insinuated: 

"Do  you  know  something?  I've  been  thinking  that 
maybe  it's  a  mistake  to  have  that  embrace  in  the 
second  act.  It  seems  to  me  to — er — to  anticipate  the 
climax." 

Reben,  all  unsuspecting,  leaped  into  the  snare: 

"That's  so!  I  always  say  that  once  the  hero  and  hero 

237 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

ine  clinch,  the  play's  over.  We'll  just  cut  it  there;  and 
save  it  to  the  end  of  the  last  act." 

Sheila,  flushed  with  her  victory,  pressed  further: 

"And  that's  another  point.  Wouldn't  it  be  more — er — 
artistic  if  you  didn't  show  the  embrace  even  then — just 
have  the  lovers  start  toward  each  other  and  ring  down  so 
that  the  curtain  drops  before  they  embrace  ?  It  would  be 
novel,  and  it  would  leave  something  to  the  audience's 
imagination." 

Reben  was  skeptical  of  this:  "We  might  try  it  in  one 
of  the  tank  towns,  but  I'm  afraid  the  people  will  be  sore  if 
they  don't  see  the  lovers  brought  together  for  at  least  one 
good  clutch.  Nothing  like  trying  things  out,  though." 

Sheila  was  tempted  to  ask  him  not  to  tell  Batterson 
that  it  was  her  idea.  The  fear  was  unnecessary.  Any 
advice  that  Reben  accepted  became  at  once  his  own  idea. 
He  advanced  to  the  orchestra  rail  and  told  Batterson  to 
"cut  out  both  clutches." 

Batterson  consented  with  ill  grace  and  Eldon  looked  so 
crestfallen,  so  humiliated,  that  Sheila  hastened  to  re 
assure  him  that  it  ,was  nothing  personal.  But  he  was  not 
convinced. 

He  was  enduring  bitter  days.  His  love  for  Sheila 
would  not  expire.  She  treated  him  with  the  greatest 
formality.  She  paid  him  the  deference  belonging  to  a 
leading  man.  She  was  more  gracious  and  more  zealous 
for  his  success  than  most  stars  are.  But  he  read  in  her 
eyes  no  glimmer  of  the  old  look. 

He  hoped  that  this  was  simply  because  she  was  too 
anxious  and  too  busy  to  consider  him,  and  that  once  the 
play  was  prosperously  launched  she  would  have  time  to 
love  him. 

This  comfort  sustained  him  through  the  loss  of  the  two 
embraces.  He  could  not  have  imagined  that  Sheila  had 
cut  them  out  to  please  Winfield,  of  whose  presence  in  her 
environs  he  never  dreamed. 

At  dinner  that  evening  Sheila  told  Bret  how  she  had 

238 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

brought  about  the  excision  of  the  two  embraces.  He  was 
as  proud  as  Lucifer  and  she  rejoiced  in  having  contrived 
his  happiness.  This  was  her  chief  ambition  now.  She 
was  thinking  more  of  him  and  his  peace  than  of  her  own 
success  or  of  that  disturbance  of  the  public  peace  which 
makes  actors,  story-tellers,  acrobats,  and  singers  and 
other  entertainers  interesting. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

O  HEILA  was  passing  through  the  meanest  phase  of  play 
O  production  when  the  first  enthusiasms  are  gone  and 
the  nagging  mechanics  of  position,  intonation,  and  speed 
are  wearing  away  the  nerves:  when  those  wrenches  and 
inconsistencies  of  plot  and  character  that  are  inevitably 
present  in  so  artificial  a  structure  as  a  play  begin  to  stick 
out  like  broken  bones;  when  scenery  and  property  and 
costumes  are  turning  up  late  and  wrong;  and  when  the 
first  audience  begins  to  loom  nearer  and  nearer  as  a  tidal 
wave  toward  which  a  ship  is  hurried  all  unready  and 
aquiver  to  its  safety  or  to  disaster. 

At  such  a  time  Sheila  found  the  presence  of  Winfield 
a  cool  shelter  in  Sahara  sands.  He  was  an  outsider;  he 
was  real;  he  loved  her;  he  didn't  want  her  to  be  an 
actress;  he  didn't  want  her  to  work;  he  wanted  her  to 
rest  in  his  arms.  His  very  angers  and  misunderstandings 
all  sprang  from  his  love  of  herself. 

Yet  only  a  few  days  and  she  must  leave  him.  The  most 
hateful  part  of  the  play  was  still  to  come — the  process  of 
"trying  it  on  the  dog" — on  a  series  of  "dog-towns," 
where  the  play  would  be  produced  before  small  and  timid 
audiences  afraid  to  commit  themselves  either  to  amuse 
ment  or  emotion  before  the  piece  had  a  metropolitan 
verdict  passed  upon  it. 

It  was  a  commonplace  that  the  test  was  uncertain,  yet 
what  other  test  was  possible  ?  There  was  too  much  danger 
in  throwing  the  piece  on  "cold"  before  the  New  York 
death-watch  of  the  first  night.  That  would  be  to  hazard 
a  great  investment  on  the  toss  of  a  coin. 

240 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Sheila  was  cowering  before  the  terrors  that  faced  her. 
The  difficulties  came  rushing  at  her  one  after  another. 
She  was  only  a  young  girl,  after  all,  and  she  had  swum 
out  too  far.  Winfield  was  her  sole  rescuer  from  the 
world.  The  others  kept  driving  her  farther  and  farther 
out  to  sea.  He  would  bring  her  to  land. 

The  thought  of  separating  from  him  for  a  whole  theat 
rical  season  grew  intolerable.  Fatigue  and  discourage 
ment  preyed  on  her  reserve  of  strength.  Fear  of  the  pub 
lic  swept  her  with  flashes  of  cold  sweat.  She  could  not 
sleep ;  herds  of  nightmares  stampeded  across  her  lonely  bed. 
She  saw  herself  stricken  with  forgetfulness,  with  aphasia; 
she  saw  the  audiences  hooting  at  her;  she  read  the  most 
venomous  criticism;  she  saw  herself  in  train  wrecks  and 
theater  fires.  She  saw  the  toppling  scenery  crushing  her, 
or  weight-bags  dropping  on  her  from  the  flies. 

The  production  was  heavy  and  complicated  and  Reben 
believed  in  many  scenery  rehearsals.  There  were  endless 
periods  of  waiting  for  stage  carpenters  to  repair  mistakes, 
for  property-men  to  provide  important  articles  omitted 
from  the  property  plot.  The  big  set  came  in  with  the 
stairway  on  the  wrong  side.  Almost  the  whole  business 
of  the  act  had  to  be  reversed  and  learned  over  again. 
The  last-act  scene  arrived  in  a  color  that  made  Sheila's 
prettiest  costume  hideous.  She  must  have  a  new  gown 
or  the  scene  must  be  repainted.  A  new  gown  was  de 
cided  on;  this  detail  meant  hours  more  of  fittings  at  the 
dressmaker's. 

The  .final  rehearsals  were  merciless.  Sheila  left  Bret 
at  the  stage  door  at  ten  o'clock  one  morning  and  did  not 
put  her  head  out  of  the  theater  till  three  o'clock  the  next 
morning.  And  five  hours  later  she  must  stand  for  cos 
tume  photographs  in  a  broiling  gallery. 

Reben,  utterly  discouraged  by  the  look  of  the  play 
in  its  setting,  feared  to  bring  it  into  New  York  even  after 
the  two  weeks  of  trial  performances  he  had  scheduled. 
An  opportunity  to  get  into  Chicago  turned  up,  and  he 

241 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

canceled  his  other  bookings.  Sheila  was  liked  in  Chicago 
and  he  determined  to  make  for  there.  The  first  per 
formance  was  shifted  from  Red  Bank,  New  Jersey,  to 
Grand  Rapids,  Michigan. 

Sheila  was  in  dismay  and  Bret  grew  unmanageable. 
The  only  excuse  for  the  excitement  of  both  was  the  fact 
that  lovers  have  always  been  the  same.  Romeo  and 
Juliet  would  not  wait  for  Romeo  to  come  back  from 
banishment.  They  had  to  be  married  secretly  at  once. 
The  world  has  always  had  its  Gretna  Greens  for  frantic 
couples. 

So  this  frantic  couple — not  content  with  all  its  other 
torments — must  inflict  mutual  torment.  Bret  loved 
Sheila  so  bitterly  that  he  could  not  endure  the  ordeal  she 
was  undergoing.  The  wearier  and  more  harried  she  grew, 
the  more  he  wearied  and  harrowed  her  with  his  doubts, 
his  demands,  his  fears  of  losing  her.  He  was  so  jealous 
of  her  ambition  that  he  made  a  crime  of  it. 

He  looked  at  her  with  farewell  in  his  eyes  and  shook 
his  head  as  over  her  grave  and  groaned:  "I'm  going  to 
lose  you,  Sheila.  You're  not  for  me." 

This  frightened  her.  She  was  even  less  willing  to  lose 
him  than  he  her.  When  she  demanded  why  he  should 
say  such  things  he  explained  that  if  she  left  him  now  he 
would  never  catch  up  with  her  again.  Her  career  was  too 
much  for  him,  and  her  loss  was  more  than  he  could  bear. 

She  mothered  him  with  eyes  of  such  devoted  pity  that 
he  said:  " Don't  stare  at  me  like  that.  You  look  a  hun 
dred  and  fifty  years  old." 

She  felt  so.  She  was  his  nurse  and  his  medicine,  and 
she  was  at  that  epoch  of  her  soul  when  her  function  was 
to  make  a  gift  of  herself. 

When  he  sighed,  "I  wanted  you  to  be  my  wife"  it 
was  the  "my"  that  thrilled  her  by  its  very  selfishness; 
it  was  the  past  tense  of  the  verb  that  alarmed  her. 

"You  wanted  me  to  be!"  she  gasped.  "Don't  you 
want  me  any  more?" 

242 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"God  knows  there's  nothing  else  I  want  in  the  world. 
But  I  can't  have  you.  My  mother  said  that  I  couldn't 
get  you;  she  said  that  your  ambition  and  the  big 
money  ahead  of  you  would  keep  you  from  giving  your 
self  to  me." 

The  primeval  feud  between  a  man's  mother  and  his  wife 
surged  up  in  her.  She  said,  less  in  irony  than  she  realized: 
"Oh,  she  said  that,  did  she?  Well,  then,  I'll  marry  you 
just  for  spite." 

"  If  you  only  would,  then  I'd  feel  sure  of  you.  I'd  have 
no  more  fears." 

"All  right.     I'll  marry  you." 

"When?" 

"Whenever  you  say." 

"Now?" 

"This  minute." 

It  was  more  like  a  bet  than  a  proposal.     He  seized  it. 

"I'll  take  you." 

They  had  snapped  their  wager  at  each  other  almost 
with  hostility.  They  glared  defiantly  together;  then 
their  eyes  softened.  Laughter  gurgled  in  their  throats. 
His  hands  shot  across  the  table;  she  put  hers  in  them, 
in  spite  of  the  waiters. 

A  fierce  impulse  to  make  certain  of  possession  caught 
them  to  their  feet.  He  paid  his  bill  standing  up,  and 
would  not  wait  for  change.  They  found  a  jewelry-shop 
and  bought  the  ring.  They  took  the  subway  to  City  Hall; 
a  taxicab  would  be  too  slow. 

There  was  no  difficulty  about  the  license.  Every 
facility  is  offered  to  those  who  take  the  first  plunge  into 
marriage.  The  ascent  into  Paradise  is  as  easy  as  the 
descent  into  Avernus.  It  is  the  getting  back  to  earth 
that  is  hard  in  both  cases. 

"Shall  we  be  married  here  in  the  City  Hall?"  said  the 
licentiate.  "It's  quicker." 

"I — I  had  rather  hoped  to  be  married  in  church," 
Sheila  pouted.  "But  whatever  you  say — " 

243 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"It  will  make  you  late  to  rehearsal,"  he  said.  He  was 
very  indulgent  to  her  career  now  that  he  was  sure  of  her. 

"Who  cares?"  she  murmured.  "Let's  go  to  the  Little 
Church  Around  the  Corner." 

And  so  they  did,  and  waited  their  turn  at  the  busy  altar. 

Then  there  was  a  furious  scurry  back  to  the  theater. 
Mrs.  Winfield  kissed  her  husband  good-by  and  dashed 
into  the  stage  door  to  take  her  scolding.  But  Mr.  Win- 
field  was  laughing  as  he  rode  away  to  arrange  for  their 
lodging  for  the  remaining  two  days.  Also  his  wife  had 
made  him  promise  to  break  the  news  to  Pennock.  Her 
father  and  mother  were  traveling  now  in  the  mid- West. 

If  Bret  had  known  Pennock  he  might  not  have  prom 
ised  so  glibly. 

When  Pennock  finished  with  Winfield  there  was  nothing 
further  to  say  in  his  offense.  She  told  him  he  was  a 
monstrous  brute  and  Sheila  was  a  little  fool  to  trust  him. 
She  declared  that  he  had  blighted  the  happiness  of  the 
best  girl  in  the  world,  and  ruined  her  career  just  as  it  was 
beginning.  Then  Pennock  locked  him  out  and  went  to 
packing  Sheila's  things.  She  wept  all  over  the  child's 
clothes  as  if  Sheila  were  buried  already.  Then  she  took 
to  her  bed  and  cried  her  pillow  soppy. 

Sheila,  all  braced  for  a  tirade  from  Batterson  for  her 
truancy,  found  that  she  had  not  been  missed.  The 
carpenters  had  the  scenery  spread  on  the  floor  of  the 
stage  like  sails  blown  over,  and  the  theater  was  a  boiler- 
factory  of  noise.  Shortly  after  her  appearance  Batterson 
called  the  company  into  the  lobby  for  rehearsal.  He  took 
up  the  act  at  the  place  where  they  had  stopped  in  the  fore 
noon — a  point  at  which  El  don  caught  Sheila's  hands  in 
his  and  lifted  them  to  his  lips. 

Now,  as  Eldon  took  those  two  beloved  palms  in  his 
and  bent  his  gaze  on  her  fingers  it  fell  on  Sheila's  shining 
new  wedding-ring.  The  circlet  caught  his  eye;  he 
studied  it  with  vague  surprise. 

244 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"A  new  ring?"  he  whispered,  casually,  not  realizing  its 
significance. 

Sheila  blushed  so  ruddily  and  snatched  her  hand  away 
with  such  guilt  that  he  understood.  He  groaned,  "My 
God,  no!" 

" I  beg  you!"  she  whispered. 

"What's  that?"  said  Batterson,  who  had  been  speaking 
to  Prior. 

"I  lost  the  line,"  said  Eldon,  looking  as  if  he  had  lost 
his  life.  Batterson  flung  it  to  him  angrily. 

There  was  nothing  for  Sheila  to  do  but  throw  herself 
on  Eldon's  mercy  at  the  first  moment  when  she  could 
steal  a  word  with  him  alone. 

He  did  not  say,  "You  had  no  mercy  on  me." 

She  knew  it.  It  was  more  eloquent  unsaid.  He  was  a 
gallant  gentleman,  and  sealed  away  his  hopes  of  Sheila 
in  a  tomb. 

At  dinner  Sheila  told  Bret  about  the  incident,  and  he 
was  secure  enough  in  the  stronghold  of  her  possession  to 
recognize  the  chivalry  of  his  ex-rival. 

"Mighty  white  of  him,"  he  said.  "Didn't  anybody 
else  notice  it?" 

"I  put  my  gloves  on  right  afterward,"  said  Sheila,  "but 
I — I  don't  dare  wear  it  again." 

"Don't  dare  wear  your  wedding-ring!"  Winfield  roared. 
"Say,  what  kind  of  a  marriage  is  this,  anyway?" 

"  I  hope  it's  not  dependent  on  a  piece  of  metal  round  my 
finger,"  Sheila  protested.  "Your  real  wedding-ring  is 
round  my  heart." 

This  was  not  enough  for  Winfield.  She  explained  to 
him  patiently  (and  gladly  because  of  the  importance  he 
gave  the  emblem)  that  she  played  an  unmarried  girl  in  the 
comedy.  And  the  audience  would  be  sure  to  spot  the 
wedding-ring. 

It  simply  had  to  come  off,  and  she  begged  him  to  under 
stand  and  be  an  angel  and  take  it  off  himself. 

He  drew  it  away  at  last.  But  he  did  not  like  the  omen. 

245 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

She  put  it  on  a  ribbon  and  he  knotted  it  about  her  neck. 
Then  she  remembered  that  she  wore  a  dinner  gown  in  the 
play,  and  it  had  to  come  off  the  ribbon.     She  would  have 
to  carry  it  in  her  pocketbook. 
The  omens  were  hopelessly  awry. 


CHAPTER   XXXIV 

THE   brand-new  couple  forgot  problems  of  this  and 
every  other  sort  in  the  raptures  and  supernal  con 
tentments  of  belonging  to  each  other  utterly  and  forever. 
The  notifying  of  their  parents  was  one  of  the  unpleas- 
antest  of  tasks.    They  put  it  off  till  the  next  day.    Sheila's 
father  and  mother  had  already  begun  their  tour  to  the 
Coast  and  the  news  found  them  in  the  Middle  West. 
Sheila  telegraphed  to  them: 

Hope  my  good  news  wont  seem  bad  news  to  you  Bret  and 
I  were  quietly  married  yesterday  please  keep  it  secret  both 
terribly  terribly  happy  play  opens  Grand  Rapids  Monday 
best  love  from  us  both  to  you  both. 

Her  good  news  was  sad  enough  for  them.  It  filled 
them  with  forebodings.  That  phrase  "terribly  happy" 
seemed  uncannily  appropriate.  Between  the  acts  of 
their  comedy  that  night  they  clung  to  each  other  and 
wept,  moaning:  "Poor  child!  The  poor  child!" 

Winfield's  situation  was  summed  up  in  a  telegram  to  his 
home. 

Happiest  man  on  earth  married  only  woman  on  earth  yester 
day  please  send  your  blessings  and  forgiveness  and  five  hundred 
dollars. 

Bret's  mother  fainted  with  a  little  wail  and  his  father's 
weak  heart  indulged  in  wild  syncopations.  When  Mrs. 
Winfield  was  resuscitated  she  lay  on  a  couch,  weeping 
tiny  old  tears  and  whimpering: 

' '  The  poor  boy !    The  poor  boy !" 

247 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

The  father  sat  bronzed  with  sick  anger.  He  had  built 
up  a  big  industry  and  the  son  he  had  reared  to  carry  it 
after  him  had  turned  out  a  loafer,  a  chaser  of  actresses,  and 
now  the  worthless  dependent  on  one  of  them. 

Charles  Winfield  pondered  like  an  old  Brutus  if  it 
were  not  his  solemn  duty  to  punish  the  renegade  with  dis 
inheritance;  to  divert  his  fortune  to  nobler  channels  and 
turn  over  his  industry  to  a  nephew  who  was  industrious 
and  loyal  to  the  factory. 

But  he  sent  the  five  hundred  dollars.  In  his  day  he  had 
eloped  with  his  own  wife  and  alienated  his  own  parents 
and  hers.  But  that  had  been  different.  Now  his  mouth 
was  full  of  the  ashes  of  his  hopes. 

Reben  was  yet  to  be  told.  Sheila  said  that  he  had 
troubles  enough  on  his  mind  and  was  in  such  a  state  of 
temper,  anyway,  that  it  would  be  kinder  to  him  not  to 
tell  him.  This  was  not  altogether  altruism. 

She  dreaded  the  storm  he  would  raise  and  longed  for  a 
portable  cyclone-cellar.  She  knew  that  he  would  de 
nounce  her  for  outrageous  dishonor  in  her  treatment  of 
him,  and  from  his  point  of  view  there  was  no  justifying 
her  unfealty.  But  she  felt  altogether  assured  that  she 
had  accomplished  a  higher  duty.  In  marrying  her  true 
love  she  was  fulfilling  her  contract  with  God  and  Nature 
and  Life,  far  greater  managers  than  any  Reben. 

She  had,  therefore,  for  her  final  rapture  the  exquisite 
tang  of  stolen  sweets.  And  to  the  mad  completeness  of  the 
escapade  was  added  the  hallowing  sanction  of  law  and  the 
Church. 

It  was  a  honeymoon,  indeed,  but  pitilessly  interrupted 
by  the  tasks  of  departure,  and  pitifully  brief. 

The  question  of  whether  or  not  her  husband — how  she 
did  read  that  word  "husband"! — should  travel  on  the 
same  train  with  her  to  Grand  Rapids  was  a  hard  riddle. 

Both  of  them  were  unready  to  publish  the  delirious 
secret  of  their  wedding. 

248 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

There  was  to  be  a  special  sleeping-car  for  the  company. 
For  Sheila  as  the  star  the  drawing-room  was  reserved, 
while  Reben  had  claimed  the  stateroom  at  the  other  end 
of  the  coach. 

To  smuggle  Bret  into  her  niche  would  be  too  perilous. 
For  her  to  travel  in  another  car  with  him  was  equally 
impossible.  If  he  went  on  the  same  train  he  might  be 
recognized  in  the  dining-car.  For  her  to  take  another 
train  would  not  be  permitted.  A  manager  has  to  keep 
his  flock  together. 

At  length  they  were  driven  to  the  appalling  hard 
ship  of  separation  for  the  journey.  Bret  would  take  an 
earlier  train,  and  arrange  for  their  sojourn  at  the  quietest 
hotel  in  Grand  Rapids.  She  would  join  him  there,  and 
no  one  would  know  of  her  tryst. 

So  they  agreed,  and  she  saw  him  off  on  the  noon  express. 
Of  all  the  topsy-turvy  households  ever  heard  of,  this  was 
the  worst !  But  they  parted  as  fiercely  as  if  he  were  going 
to  the  wars. 

The  company  car  left  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
and  was  due  in  Grand  Rapids  at  one  the  next  day.  Eldon 
and  Pennock  alone  knew  that  the  young  star  was  a  young 
bride.  Both  of  them  regarded  Sheila  with  such  woeful 
reproach  that  she  ordered  Pennock  to  change  her  face  or 
jump  off  the  train,  and  she  shut  herself  away  from  Eldon 
in  her  drawing-room. 

But  she  was  soon  routed  out  by  Batterson  for  a  reading 
rehearsal  of  a  new  scene  that  Prior  had  concocted.  She 
was  so  afraid  of  Eldon 's  eyes  and  so  absent-minded  with 
thoughts  of  her  courier  husband  that  Batterson  thought 
she  had  lost  her  wits. 

Twice  she  called  Eldon  "Bret"  instead  of  "Ned,"  the 
name  of  his  r61e.  That  was  how  he  learned  who  it  was  she 
had  married. 

Even  when  she  escaped  to  study  the  new  lines  she  could 
not  get  her  mind  on  anything  but  fears  for  the  train  that 
carried  her  husband. 

17  249 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

After  dinner  Reben  called  on  her  for  a  chat.  He  alluded 
to  the  fact  that  he  had  wired  ahead  for  the  best  room  in  the 
best  hotel  for  the  new  star. 

Sheila  was  aghast  at  this  complication,  which  she  would 
have  foreseen  if  she  had  ever  been  either  a  star  or  a  bride 
before. 

Reben  was  in  a  mood  of  hope.  The  voyage  to  new 
scenes  heartened  everybody  except  Sheila.  Reben  kept 
trying  to  cheer  her  up.  He  could  best  have  cheered  her  by 
leaving  her.  He  imputed  her  distracted  manner  to  stage- 
fright.  It  was  everything  but  that. 

That  night  Sheila  knew  for  the  first  time  what  loneliness 
really  means.  She  pined  in  solitude,  an  early  widow. 

The  train  was  late  in  arriving  and  the  company  was 
ordered  to  report  at  the  theater  in  half  an  hour.  The 
company-manager  informed  Sheila  that  her  trunk  would 
be  sent  to  her  hotel  as  soon  as  possible.  She  thanked  him 
curtly,  and  he  growled  to  Batterson: 

"She's  playing  the  prima  donna  already." 

She  was  all  befuddled  by  this  new  tangle.  How  was 
she  to  smuggle  her  trunk  from  the  hotel  to  her  husband's 
lodgings,  and  where  were  they?  He  had  arranged  to 
leave  a  letter  at  the  theater  instructing  her  where  they 
were  to  pitch  their  tent.  She  went  directly  to  the  theater. 

She  found  a  corpulent  envelope  in  the  mail-box  at  the 
stage  door.  It  was  full  of  mourning  for  the  lost  hours  and 
full  of  enthusiasm  over  the  cozy  nook  Bret  had  discovered 
in  the  outer  edge  of  town.  He  implored  her  to  make  haste. 

As  she  set  out  to  find  a  telephone  and  explain  to  him 
the  delay  for  rehearsal,  she  was  called  back  by  Reben 
to  the  dark  stage  where  Batterson  and  Prior  and  Eldon 
were  gathered  under  the  glimmer  of  a  few  lights  on  an  iron 
standard.  They  were  discussing  a  new  bit  of  business. 

Sheila  was  aflame  with  impatience,  but  she  could  not 
leave.  Before  the  council  of  war  was  finished  the  general 
rehearsal  was  called — a  distracting  ordeal,  with  the  com 
pany  crowded  to  the  footlights  and  struggling  to  remember 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

lines  and  cues  in  the  battle-like  clamor  of  getting  the 
scenery  in,  making  the  new  drops  fast  to  the  ropes  and 
hoisting  them  away  to  the  flies.  H.ammers  were  pound 
ing,  canvases  going  up,  stage-hands  shouting  and  inter 
rupting. 

The  rehearsal  was  vexatious  enough  in  all  conscience, 
but  its  crudities  were  aggravated  by  the  icy  realization 
that  this  was  the  final  rehearsal  before  the  production. 
In  a  few  hours  the  multitude  of  empty  chairs  would  be 
occupied  by  the  big  jury. 

Under  this  strain  the  actors  developed  disheartening 
lapses  of  memory  that  promised  complications  at  night. 
When  the  lines  had  been  parroted  over,  Reben  spoke  a  few 
words  like  a  dubious  king  addressing  his  troops  before 
battle.  The  stage-manager  sang  out  with  unwonted 
comradery : 

"Go  to  it,  folks,  and  good  luck!" 

Sheila  dashed  to  the  stage  door,  only  to  be  called  again 
by  Reben.  He  offered  to  walk  to  the  hotel  with  her. 
She  dared  not  refuse.  He  invited  her  to  dine  with  him. 
She  said  that  she  would  be  dining  in  her  room.  In  the 
lobby  of  the  hotel  he  had  much  to  say  and  kept  her  wait 
ing.  He  was  trying  to  cheer  up  a  poor  fluttering  girl 
about  to  go  through  the  fire.  He  found  her  peculiarly 
ill  at  ease. 

At  last  she  escaped  him  and  flew  to  her  room  to  tele 
phone  Bret.  She  knew  he  must  be  boiling  over  by  now. 
Pennock  met  her  with  exciting  news.  Certain  articles  of 
her  costume  had  not  arrived  as  promised.  Shopping  must 
be  done  at  once,  since  the  stores  were  about  to  close. 

All  things  must  yield  to  the  battle-needs,  and  Sheila 
postponed  telephoning  Bret;  it  was  the  one  postponable 
duty.  By  the  time  she  had  finished  her  purchases  it  was 
too  late  to  make  the  trip  out  to  the  cozy  nook  he  had 
selected.  She  was  bitterly  disappointed  on  his  account — 
and  her  own. 

251 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

She  reached  the  telephone  at  last,  only  to  learn  that  he 
had  gone  out,  leaving  a  message  that  if  his  wife  called  up 
she  was  to  be  told  to  come  to  their  lodgings  at  once.  But 
this  she  could  not  do.  And  she  could  not  find  him  to 
explain  why. 

He  found  her  at  last  by  telephone,  and  when  she  de 
scribed  her  plight  to  him  he  wras  furious  with  disappoint 
ment  and  wrath.  He  had  bought  flowers  lavishly  and 
decorated  the  rooms  and  the  table  where  they  were  to 
have  had  peace  at  last  for  a  while.  Nullified  hope 
sickened  him. 

He  could  not  visit  her  at  the  theater  during  her  make 
up  periods  or  between  the  acts.  He  had  to  skulk  about 
during  the  performance,  dodging  Reben,  who  watched 
the  play  from  the  front  and  shifted  his  position  from  time 
to  time  to  get  various  points  of  view,  and  overhear  what 
the  people  said. 

Numberless  mishaps  punctuated  the  opening  perform 
ance  of  "The  Woman  Pays,"  as  the  play  had  been  re 
labeled  for  the  sixth  time  at  the  eleventh  hour.  Lines 
were  forgotten  and  twisted,  and  characters  called  out  of 
their  names. 

In  the  scene  where  Eldon  was  to  propose  to  Sheila  and 
she  to  accept  him,  the  distraite  Sheila,  unable  to  remember 
a  line  exactly,  gave  its  general  meaning.  Unfortunately 
she  used  a  phrase  that  was  one  of  Eldon's  cues  later  on. 
He  answered  it  mechanically  as  he  had  been  rehearsed, 
and  then  gave  Sheila  the  right  cue  for  the  wrong  scene. 
Her  memory  went  on  from  there  and  she  heard  herself 
accepting  Eldon  before  he  had  proposed.  He  realized 
the  blunder  at  the  same  time. 

They  paused,  stared,  hesitated,  wondering  how  to  get 
back  to  the  starting-point,  and  improvised  desperately 
while  the  prompter  stood  helpless  in  the  wings,  not  know 
ing  where  to  throw  what  line.  Reben  swore  silently  and 
perspired.  The  audience  blamed  itself  for  its  bewilder 
ment. 

252 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

But  even  amid  such  confusion  Sheila  was  fascinating. 
There  was  no  doubt  of  that.  When  she  appeared  the 
spectators  sat  forward,  the  whole  face  of  the  house 
beamed  and  smiled  "welcome"  with  instant  hospitality. 
Reben  recognized  the  mysterious  power  and  told  Starr 
Coleman  and  the  house-manager  that  Kemble  was  a  gold 
mine. 

Bret  felt  his  heart  go  out  to  the  brave,  pretty  thing 
she  was  up  there,  sparkling  and  glowing  and  making 
people  happy.  He  was  proud  that  she  belonged  to  him. 
He  felt  sorry  for  the  public  because  it  had  to  lose  her. 
But  he  was  not  the  public's  keeper.  He  was  glad  he  had 
made  her  cut  ©ut  that  embrace  with  Eldon — both  of  the 
embraces. 

The  last  curtain  fell  just  before  the  lovers  moved  into 
each  other's  open  arms.  This  was  the  "artistic"  effect 
that  Sheila  had  persuaded  Reben  to  try.  Even  Bret  felt 
a  lurch  of  disappointment  in  the  audience.  There  was 
applause,  but  the  rising  curtain  disclosed  the  actors 
bowing.  There  was  something  wanting.  Bret  would 
have  regretted  it  himself  if  he  had  not  been  the  husband 
of  the  star. 

He  was  aching  with  impatience  to  see  her  and  tell  her 
how  wonderful  she  was.  He  did  not  dare  go  back  on  the 
stage,  lest  his  presence  in  Grand  Rapids  should  require 
explaining.  He  must  wait  in  the  alley — he,  the  owner  of 
the  star,  must  wait  in  the  alley! 

He  hated  the  humiliation  of  his  position,  and  thanked 
Heaven  that  after  this  season  Sheila  would  be  at  home  with 
him.  He  hoped  that  it  would  not  take  her  long  to  slip 
into  her  street  clothes. 

He  was  the  more  eager  to  see  her  as  he  had  prepared  a 
little  banquet  in  their  rooms.  In  his  over- abundant 
leisure  he  had  bought  a  chafing-dish  and  the  other  things 
necessary  to  a  supper.  Everything  was  set  out,  ready. 
He  chuckled  as  he  trudged  up  and  down  the  alley  and 
pictured  Sheila's  delight,  and  the  cozy  housewifeliness  of 

253 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

her  as  she  should  light  the  lamp  and  stir  the  chafing-dish. 
They  would  begin  very  light  housekeeping  at  once,  with 
never  a  servant  to  mar  their  communion. 

But  Sheila  did  not  come.  None  of  the  company 
emerged  from  the  stage  door.  It  was  long  after  twelve  and 
nobody  had  appeared.  He  did  not  know  that  the  com 
pany  had  been  held  after  the  performance  for  criticism. 
Aligned  in  all  its  fatigue  and  after-slump,  it  waited  to  be 
harangued  by  Reben  while  the  "grips "'whisked  away  the 
scenery.  Reben  read  the  copious  notes  he  had  made. 
He  spared  no  one.  Every  member  in  turn  was  rebuked 
for  something,  and  he  carefully  refrained  from  any  words 
of  approval  lest  the  company  should  become  conceited. 

Reben  believed  in  lashing  his  horses  to  their  tasks. 
Others  believe  otherwise  and  succeed  as  well,  but  Reben 
was  known  as  a  "slave-driver."  He  paid  good  prices  for 
his  slaves  and  it  was  a  distinction  to  belong  to  him;  but 
he  worked  them  hard. 

Batterson  and  Prior  had  also  made  notes  on  the  per 
formance  and  the  dismal  actors  received  spankings  one 
after  another.  Sheila  was  not  overlooked.  Rather  she 
was  subjected  to  extra  severity  because  she  carried  the 
success  or  failure  on  her  young  shoulders. 

As  usual,  the  first  performance  found  the  play  too  long. 
The  first  rough  cuts  were  announced  and  a  rehearsal  called 
for  the  next  morning  at  ten. 

It  was  half  past  twelve  when  the  forlorn  and  worn-out 
players  were  permitted  to  slink  off  to  their  dressing-rooms. 

Sheila  knew  that  her  poor  Bret  must  have  been  posting 
the  alley  outside  like  a  caged  hyena.  She  was  so  tired  and 
dejected  that  she  hardly  cared.  She  sent  Pennock  out  to 
explain.  Pennock  could  not  find  him.  She  did  not  look 
long.  She  did  not  like  him.  When  at  length  Sheila  was 
dressed  for  the  street  she  found  Reben  waiting  for  her 
with  the  news  that  he  had  ordered  a  little  supper  in  a 
private  room  at  the  hotel,  so  that  she  and  Batterson, 
Prior  and  Eldon  and  the  company-manager  and  the  press 

254 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

agent,  Starr  Coleman,  and  the  house-manager,  might  dis 
cuss  the  play  while  it  was  fresh  in  their  minds. 

Sheila  had  never  sat  on  one  of  these  inquests  before, 
and  she  had  not  foreseen  the  call  to  this  one.  Such  con 
ferences  are  as  necessary  in  the  theater  as  a  meeting  of 
generals  after  a  hard  day's  battle.  Long  after  the  critics 
have  turned  in  their  diatribes  or  eulogies  and  gone  home 
to  bed,  the  captains  of  the  drama  are  comparing  notes, 
quoting  what  the  audience  has  said,  searching  out  flaws  and 
discussing  them,  often  with  more  asperity  than  the 
roughest  critic  reveals. 

In  these  anxious  night-watches  the  fate  of  the  new 
play  may  be  settled,  and  advance,  retreat,  or  surrender 
decided  upon. 

Sheila,  thinking  of  her  poor  husband,  asked  Reben  to 
excuse  her  from  the  conference. 

His  look  of  amazement  and  his  sharp  "Why?"  found 
her  without  any  available  excuse.  She  drearily  con 
sented  and  was  led  along. 

During  and  after  the  cold  supper  everybody  had  much 
to  say  except  Sheila.  Endless  discussions  arose  on 
minutely  unimportant  points  or  upon  great  vague  prin 
ciples  of  the  drama  and  of  public  appeal.  At  three  o'clock 
Sheila  began  to  doze  and  wake  in  short  agonies.  There 
was  a  hint  of  daybreak  in  the  sky  when  the  meeting  broke 
up.  She  was  too  sleepy  to  care  much  whether  she  lived 
or  died  or  had  a  husband  or  had  just  lost  one.  She  made 
a  somnambulistic  effort  to  search  for  Bret,  but  Reben 
and  the  others  had  adjourned  to  the  hotel  lobby  for 
further  debate  and  she  dared  not  challenge  their  curiosity. 

She  went  to  the  room  the  manager  had  reserved  for  her 
and  slept  there  like  a  Juliet  on  her  tomb. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

'"PHE  next  morning  Pennock  did  not  call  Sheila  till  the 
1  last  moment.  Then  her  breakfast  was  on  the  table 
and  her  bath  in  the  tub.  The  old  dragon  had  again  for 
bidden  the  telephone  operator  to  ring  the  bell,  and  the 
bell-boys  that  came  to  the  door  with  messages  from  Bret 
she  shooed  away. 

Sheila  found  on  her  breakfast -tray  a  small  stack  of 
notes  from  Bret.  They  ranged  from  incredulous  amaze 
ment  at  her  neglect  to  towering  rage. 

Sheila  was  still  new  enough  to  wedlock  to  feel  sorrier 
for  him  than  for  herself.  She  had  a  dim  feeling  that  Bret 
had  in  him  the  makings  of  a  very  difficult  specimen  of 
that  most  difficult  class,  the  prima  donna's  husband.  But 
she  blamed  her  profession  and  hated  the  theater  and  Reben 
for  tormenting  her  poor,  patient,  devoted,  long-suffering 
lover. 

Yet  as  the  soldier  bridegroom,  however  he  hates  the  war, 
obeys  his  captain  none  the  less,  so  Sheila  never  dreamed  of 
mutiny.  She  was  an  actor's  daughter  and  no  treachery 
could  be  worse  than  to  desert  a  manager,  a  company, 
and  a  work  of  art  at  the  crisis  of  the  whole  investment. 
She  regretted  that  she  was  not  even  giving  her  whole  mind 
and  ambition  to  her  work.  But  how  could  she  with  her 
husband  in  such  a  plight  ? 

She  wrote  Bret  a  little  note  of  mad  regret,  abject  apol 
ogy,  and  insane  devotion,  and  asked  Pennock  to  get  it  to 
him  at  once. 

Pennock  growled:  "You  better  give  that  young  man 

256 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

to  me.  You'll  never  have  time  to  see  him.  And  his 
jealousy  is  simply  dretful." 

At  the  theater  Sheila  met  Reben  in  a  morning-after 
mood.  He  had  had  little  sleep  and  he  was  sure  that  the 
play  was  hopeless.  The  only  thing  that  could  have  cured 
him  would  have  been  a  line  of  people  at  the  box-office. 
The  lobby  was  empty,  and  few  spaces  can  look  quite  so 
empty  as  a  theater  lobby.  The  box-office  man  spoke  to 
him,  too,  with  a  familiarity  based  undoubtedly  on  the 
notices. 

One  of  the  papers  published  a  fulsome  eulogy  that  Starr 
Coleman  would  not  have  dared  to  submit.  Of  the  opposite 
tenor  was  the  slashing  abuse  of  a  more  important  paper 
that  nursed  one  of  those  critics  of  which  each  town  has 
at  least  a  single  specimen — the  local  Archilochus  whose 
similar  ambition  seems  to  be  to  drive  the  objects  of  his 
satire  to  suicide. 

His  chief  support  is  his  knowledge  that  his  readers 
enjoy  his  vigor  in  pelting  transient  actors  as  a  small  boy 
throws  rocks  at  express  trains.  His  highest  reward  is  the 
town  boast,  "We  got  a  critic  can  roast  an  actor  as  good  as 
anybuddy  in  N'York,  and  ain't  afraid  to  do  it,  either." 

As  children  these  humorists  first  show  their  genius  by 
placing  bent  pins  on  chairs ;  later  they  pull  the  chairs  from 
under  old  ladies  and  start  baby-carriages  on  a  downward 
path.  Every  day  is  April  fool  to  them. 

Reben  was  always  arguing  that  critics  had  nothing  to 
do  with  success  or  failure  and  always  ready  to  document 
his  argument,  and  always  trembled  before  them,  none  the 
less.  It  is  small  wonder  that  critics  learn  to  secrete 
vitriol,  since  their  praise  makes  so  little  effect  and  only 
their  acid  etches. 

Reben  had  tossed  aside  the  paper  that  praised  his  com 
pany  and  his  play,  but  he  clipped  the  hostile  articles. 
The  play-roaster  began,  as  usual,  with  a  pun  on  the  title, 
"The  Woman  Pays  but  the  audience  won't." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Reben  was  about  convinced  that 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

the  play  was  a  failure.  It  had  succeeded  in  France  be 
cause  it  was  written  for  the  French.  The  process  of 
adaptation  had  taken  away  its  Gallic  brilliance  without 
adding  any  Anglo-Saxon  trickery.  Reben  would  make 
a  fight  for  it,  before  he  gave  up,  but  he  had  a  cold,  dismal 
intuition  which  he  summed  up  to  Batterson  in  that  simple 
fatal  phrase: 

"It  won't  do." 

He  did  not  tell  Sheila  so,  lest  he  hurt  her  work,  but  he 
told  Prior  that  the  play  was  deficient  in  viscera — only  he 
used  the  grand  old  Anglo-Saxon  phrasing. 

He  gave  Prior  some  ideas  for  the  visceration  of  the  play 
and  set  him  to  work  on  a  radical  reconstruction,  chiefly 
involving  a  powerful  injection  of  heart-interest.  Till  this 
was  ready  there  was  no  use  meddling  with  details. 

When  Sheila  reached  the  theater  the  rehearsal  was 
brief  and  perfunctory.  Reben  explained  the  situation, 
and  told  her  to  take  a  good  rest  and  give  a  performance 
at  night.  He  had  only  one  suggestion : 

"  Put  more  pep  in  the  love-scenes  and  restore  the  clutch 
at  the  last  curtain." 

Sheila  gasped,  "But  I  thought  it  was  so  much  more 
artistic  the  way  we  played  it  last  night." 

Reben  laughed:  "Ah,  behave!  When  the  curtain  fell 
last  night  the  thud  could  be  heard  a  mile.  The  people 
thought  it  fell  by  accident.  If  the  box-office  hadn't  been 
closed  they'd  have  hollered  for  their  money  back.  You 
jump  into  Eldon's  arms  to-night  and  hug  as  hard  as  you 
can.  The  same  to  you,  Eldon.  It's  youth  and  love  they 
come  to  see,  not  artistic  omissions." 

Sheila  felt  grave  misgivings  as  to  the  effect  of  the 
restoration  on  her  own  arch-critic  and  private  audience. 
But  she  rejoiced  at  being  granted  a  holiday.  She  tele 
phoned  to  Bret  from  a  drug-store. 

"I've  got  a  day  off,  honey.     Isn't  it  gee-lo-rious!" 

Then  she  sped  to  him  as  fast  as  a  taxicab  could  take 
her.  He  had  an  avalanche  of  grievances  waiting  for  her, 

258 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

but  the  sight  of  her  beauty  running  home  to  him  melted 
the  stored-up  snows.  The  chafing-dish  was  still  in  place 
after  its  all-night  vigil,  and  it  cooked  a  luncheon  that 
rivaled  quails  and  manna. 

That  afternoon  Bret  chartered  a  motor  and  they  rode 
afar.  They  talked  much  of  their  first  moonlight  ride. 
It  was  still  moonlight  about  them,  though  people  better 
acquainted  with  the  region  would  have  called  it  afternoon 
sunlight.  When  Bret  kissed  her  now  she  did  not  com 
plain  or  threaten.  In  fact,  she  complained  and  threatened 
when  he  did  not  kiss  her. 

They  dined  outside  the  city  walls  and  scudded  home 
in  the  sunset.  Sheila  would  not  let  Bret  take  her  near 
the  theater,  lest  he  be  seen.  Indeed,  she  beggod  him  not 
to  go  to  the  theater  at  all  that  night,  but  to  spend  the 
hours  of  waiting  at  the  vaudeville  or  some  moving-picture 
house.  He  protested  that  he  did  not  want  her  out  of  his 
sight. 

The  reason  she  gave  was  not  the  real  one:  "Everybody 
always  plays  badly  at  a  second  performance,  honey. 
I'd  hate  to  have  you  see  how  badly  I  can  play.  Please 
don't  go  to-night." 

He  consented  sulkily;  she  had  a  hope  that  the  romantic 
emphasis  Reben  had  commanded  and  the  final  embrace 
would  fail  so  badly  that  he  would  not  insist  on  their  re 
tention.  She  did  not  want  Bret  to  see  the  experiment. 
But  there  was  no  denying  that  warmth  helped  the  play 
immensely.  Sheila's  increased  success  distressed  her.  Her 
marriage  had  tied  all  her  ambitions  into  such  a  snarl  that 
she  could  be  true  neither  to  Bret  nor  to  Reben  and  least  of 
all  to  herself. 

Reben  was  jubilant.  "What  d'l  tell  you?  That's 
what  they  pay  for;  a  lot  of  heart-throbs  and  one  or  two 
big  punches.  We'll  get  'em  yet.  Will  you  have  a  bite  of 
supper  with  us  to-night?" 

"Thanks  ever  so  much,"  said  Sheila.  "I  have  an 
engagement  with — friends . ' ' 

259 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

She  simply  had  not  the  courage  to  use  the  singular. 

Reben  laughed:  "So  long  as  it's  not  just  one.  By  the 
by,  where  were  you  all  day?  I  tried  all  afternoon  to  get 
you  at  the  hotel.  I  wanted  to  take  you  out  for  a  little 
fresh  air." 

"  That's  awfully  nice  of  you,  but  I  got  the  air.  I — I  was 
motoring." 

"With  friendzz?"  he  asked,  peculiarly. 

"Naturally  not  with  enemies." 

She  thought  that  rather  quick  work.  But  he  gave  her 
a  suspicious  look. 

"Remember,  Sheila — your  picture  is  pasted  all  over 
town.  These  small  cities  are  gossip-factories.  Be  care 
ful.  Remember  the  old  saying,  if  you  can't  be  good,  be 
careful." 

She  blushed  scarlet  and  protested,  "Mr.  Reben!" 

He  apologized  in  haste,  convinced  that  his  suspicions 
were  outrageous,  and  glad  to  be  wrong.  He  added:  "I've 
got  good  news  for  you:  the  office  sale  for  to-morrow's 
matinee  and  night  shows  a  little  j  ump .  That  tells  the  story . 
When  the  business  grows,  we  can  laugh  at  the  critics." 

"Fine!"  said  Sheila,  half-heartedly.  Then  she  hurried 
from  the  theater  to  the  carriage  waiting  at  the  appointed 
spot.  The  door  opened  magically  and  she  was  drawn 
into  the  dark  and  cuddled  into  the  arms  of  her  "friends," 
her  family,  her  world. 

After  the  first  informalities  Bret  asked,  "Well,  how  did 
it  go?" 

"Pretty  well,  everybody  said.  But  it  needs  a  lot  of 
work.  Reben  is  sure  we've  got  a  success,  eventually." 

"That's  good,"  Bret  sighed. 

When  they  reached  the  hotel  they  found  that  they  had 
neglected  to  provide  supplies  for  the  chafing-dish.  Sheila 
was  hungry. 

"We're  old  married  people  now,"  said  Sheila.  "Let's 
have  supper  in  the  dining-room.  There'll  be  nobody 
we  know  in  this  little  hotel." 

260 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

They  took  supper  in  the  little  dining-room.  There  were 
only  two  other  people  there.  Sheila  noted  that  they 
stared  at  her  with  frank  delight  and  plainly  kept  talking 
about  her.  She  was  used  to  it;  Winfield  did  not  see  any 
body  on  earth  but  Sheila. 

"Kind  of  nice  being  together  in  public  like  decent 
people,"  he  beamed. 

"  Isn't  it?"  she  gleamed. 

"Let's  have  another  motor-ride  to-morrow  afternoon." 

"I  can't,  honey.     It's  matine'e  day." 

"We'll  get  up  early  and  go  in  the  morning,  then." 

"Oh,  but  I've  got  to  sleep  as  late  as  I  can,  honey! 
It's  a  hard  day  for  me." 

The  next  morning  they  had  breakfast  served  in  their 
apartment  at  twelve  o'clock.  She  called  it  breakfast. 
Ijt  was  lunch  for  Bret. 

He  had  stolen  out  of  the  darkened  room  at  eight  and 
gone  down  to  his  breakfast  in  the  cafe.  He  had  dawdled 
about  the  town,  buying  her  flowers  and  gifts.  When  he 
got  back  at  eleven  she  was  still  asleep.  She  looked  as  if 
she  had  been  drowned. 

He  sat  in  the  dim  light  till  it  was  time  to  call  her. 
They  were  eating  grapefruit  out  of  the  same  spoon  when 
the  telephone  rang.  A  gruff  voice  greeted  Bret: 

"Is  this  Mr.  Winfield?" 

"Yes.     Who  are  you?" 

" Is— Miss— is  Sheila  there?" 

"Ye — yes.     Who  are  you?" 

"Mr.  Reben." 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

r"PHAT  morning  Reben  had  wakened  early  with  a  head 
1     full  of  inspirations.     He  was  fairly  lyrical  with  ideas. 
He  wanted  to  talk  them  over  with  Sheila.     He  called  up 
her  room.     Pennock  answered  the  telephone. 

"  Can  I  speak  to  Miss  Kemble?" 

"She — she's  not  up  yet." 

"Oh !  Well,  as  soon  as  she  is  up  have  her  let  me  know. 
I  want  a  word  with  her." 

"Yes,  sir." 

Pennock,  in  dismay,  called  up  Winfield's  hotel  to  fore 
warn  Sheila.  But  Winfield  had  gone  out,  leaving  word 
that  his  wife  was  not  to  be  disturbed.  Pennock  left  a 
message  that  she  was  to  call  up  Miss  Pennock  as  soon  as 
she  was  disturbable.  The  message  was  put  in  Winfield's 
box.  When  he  came  in  he  did  not  stop  at  the  desk  to 
inquire  for  messages,  since  he  expected  none. 

Reben  grew  more  and  more  eager  to  explain  his  new 
ideas  to  Sheila.  He  called  up  Pennock  again. 

"Isn't  Miss  Kemble  up  yet?" 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Pennock. 

"  I  want  to  speak  to  her." 

The  distracted  Pennock  groped  for  the  nearest  ex 
cuse: 

"She — she's  gone  out." 

"But  I  told  you  to  tell  her!  Didn't  you  tell  her  I 
wanted  to  speak  to  her?" 

"Oh  yes,  sir." 

"What  did  she  say?" 

262 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"Nothing,  sir;  nothing,"  Pennock  faltered.  She  had 
told  one  big  lie  that  morning  and  her  invention  was 
exhausted. 

"That's  damned  funny,"  Reben  growled.  Slapping 
the  receiver  on  the  hook,  he  went  to  the  cigar-stand,  fum 
ing,  and  bought  a  big  black  cigar  to  bite  on. 

When  plays  are  failures  one's  friends  avoid  one.  When 
plays  are  successes  strangers  crowd  forward  with  con 
gratulations.  The  cigar  girl  said  to  the  angry  manager, 
who  had  given  her  free  tickets  the  night  before:  "That's 
a  lovely  show,  Mr.  Reben.  I  had  a  lovely  time,  and  Miss 
Kemble  is  simpully  love-la." 

A  stranger  who  was  poking  a  cheap  cigar  into  the  general 
chopper  spoke  in:  "I  was  there  last  night,  too — me  and 
the  wife.  You  the  manager?" 

Reben  nodded  impatiently. 

The  stranger  went  on :  "That's  a  great  little  star  you  got 
there — Miss  Kemble — or  Mrs.  Winfield,  I  suppose  I'd 
ought  to  say." 

Reben  looked  his  surprise.     "Mrs.  Winfield?" 

"Yes.  She's  stopping  at  our  hotel  with  her  husband. 
Right  nice-lookin'  feller.  Actor,  too,  I  s'pose?  I'm  on 
here  buying  furniture.  I  always  stop  at  the  Emerton. 
Right  nice  hotel.  Prices  reasonable;  food  fair  to  mid- 
dlin'.  Has  she  been  married  long?" 

But  Reben  had  moved  off.  He  was  in  a  mood  to  believe 
any  bad  rumor.  This,  being  the  worst  news  imaginable, 
sounded  true.  He  felt  queasy  with  business  disgust  and 
with  plain  old-fashioned  moral  shock.  He  rushed  for  the 
telephone-booth  and  clawed  at  the  book  till  he  found  the 
number  of  the  Emerton  Hotel.  He  was  puffing  with 
anxious  wrath. 

When  Winfield  answered,  Reben  almost  collapsed. 
While  he  waited  he  took  his  temper  under  control.  When 
he  heard  Sheila's  voice  quivering  with  all  the  guilt  in  the 
world  he  mumbled,  quietly: 

"Oh,  Sheila,  I'd  like  to  have  a  word  with  you." 

263 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"Wh-where?"  Sheila  quivered. 

"Here.  No  — at  the  theater.  No  — yes,  at  the 
theater." 

"All  right,"  she  mumbled.  "I'll  be  there  as  soon  as  I 
can." 


CHAPTER   XXXVII 

SHEILA  went  to  the  theater  with  the  joyous  haste  of 
a  child  going  up  to  the  teacher's  desk  for  punishment. 
She  wondered  how  Reben  could  have  learned  of  the  mar 
riage.  She  wished  she  had  told  him  of  it  when  it  was. 
celebrated.  She  felt  that  poor  Reben  had  a  just  grievance 
against  her.  It  would  be  only  fair  to  let  him  scold  his 
anger  out,  and  bear  his  tirade  in  quiet  resignation. 

Bret  thought  that  he  might  as  well  come  along,  since 
he  had  been  unearthed.  But  Sheila  would  not  permit 
him  to  enter  the  theater  lest  Reben  and  he  fall  to  blows. 
She  did  not  want  Reben  to  be  beaten  up.  She  left  Bret 
in  the  alley,  and  promised  to  call  for  him  if  she  were 
attacked. 

The  theater  was  quite  deserted  at  this  hour.  Sheila 
found  Reben  pacing  the  corridor  before  her  dressing- 
room.  She  advanced  toward  him  timidly  with  shame 
that  he  misinterpreted.  He  fairly  lashed  her  with  his 
glare  and  groaned  in  all  contempt: 

"My  God,  Sheila,  I'd  never  have  thought  it  of  you!" 

"Thought  what?"  Sheila  gasped. 

He  laughed  harshly:  "And  you  called  me  down  for  in 
sulting  you !  And  you  got  away  with  it !  But,  say,  you 
ought  to  use  your  brains  if  you're  going  to  play  a  game 
like  that.  Coarse  work,  Sheila ;  coarse  work!" 

Sheila  bit  her  lip  to  keep  back  the  resentment  boiling 
up  in  her  heart. 

He  went  on  with  his  denunciation:  "I  warned  you  that 
you  would  be  known  everywhere  you  went.  I  told  you 
your  picture  was  all  over  town.  And  now  your  name  is. 
18  265 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

A  stranger  comes  up  to  me  and  says  he  saw  you  and 
your — your  'husband,'  Mr.  Winfield?  Who's  the  man? 
What's  his  real  name?" 

"  Mr.  Winfield,  of  course." 

"Oh,  of  course!  Where  did  you  meet  him?  Does  he 
live  here?" 

"Live  here!     Indeed,  he  doesn't!" 

"He  followed  you  here,  then?" 

"He  preceded  me  here." 

"It's  as  bad  as  that,  eh?  Well,  you  leave  him  here, 
at  once.  If  he  comes  near  you  again  I'll  break  every  bone 
in  his  body." 

Sheila  laughed.  "You  haven't  seen  my  husband,  have 
you?" 

"Your  husband?"  Reben  laughed.  "Are  you  going  to 
try  to  bluff  it  out  with  me,  too?" 

Sheila  blenched  at  this.  "He  is  my  husband!"  she 
stormed.  "And  you'd  better  not  let  him  hear  you  talk 
so  to  me." 

Reben's  knees  softened  under  him.  "Sheila !  you  don't 
mean  that  you've  gone  and  got  yourself  married!" 

"What  else  should  I  mean?  How  dare  you  think  any 
thing  else?" 

"Oh,  you  fool!  you  fool!  you  little  damned  fool!" 

"Thanks!" 

"You  little  sneaking  traitor.  Didn't  you  promise  me, 
on  your  word  of  honor — " 

"I  promised  to  carry  out  my  contract.  And  here  I 
am." 

"I  ought  to  break  that  contract  myself." 

"You  couldn't  please  me  better." 

He  stood  over  her  and  glowered  while  his  fingers 
twitched.  She  stared  back  at  him  pugnaciously.  Then 
he  mourned  over  her.  She  was  both  his  lost  love  and  his 
lost  ward.  His  regret  broke  out  in  a  groan: 

"Why  did  you  do  this,  Sheila?  Why,  why — in  God's 
name,  why?" 

266 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Sheila  had  no  answer.  He  might  as  well  have  shouted 
at  her:  "Why  does  the  earth  roll  toward  the  east?  Why 
does  gravity  haul  the  worlds  together  and  keep  them 
apart?  Why  are  flowers?  or  June?  what's  the  reason  for 
June?" 

Sheila  knew  why  no  more  than  the  rose  knows  why. 

At  length  Reben's  business  instinct  came  to  the  rescue 
of  his  heartbreak.  He  thought  of  his  investment,  of  his 
contracts,  of  his  hoped-for  profits.  His  experience  as  a 
manager  had  taught  him  to  be  another  Job.  He  ignored 
her  challenge,  and  groaned,  "How  are  we  going  to  keep 
this  crime  a  secret?" 

Sheila,  seeing  that  he  had  surrendered,  forgot  her  anger-. 
"Have  we  got  to?" 

"Of  course  we  have.  You  know  it  won't  help  you  any 
to  be  known  as  a  married  woman.  O  Lord!  what  fools 
these  mortals  be!  We've  got  to  keep  it  dark  at  least  till 
the  play  gets  over  in  New  York.  If  it's  a  hit  it  won't 
matter  so  much;  if  it's  a  flivver,  it  will  matter  still  less." 

He  was  heartsick  at  her  folly  and  her  double-dealing. 
Such  things  and  worse  had  happened  to  him  and  to  other 
managers.  They  force  managers  to  be  cynical  and  to 
drive  hard  bargains  while  they  can.  Like  captains  of 
ships,  they  are  always  at  the  ultimate  mercy  of  any  mem 
ber  of  the  crew.  But  they  must  make  voyages  somehow. 

Feeling  the  uselessness  of  wasting  reproaches,  Reben 
left  Sheila  and  groped  through  the  dark  house  to  the  lobby. 
There  he  found  a  most  interesting  spectacle — a  line  at  the 
box-office.  It  was  a  convincing  argument.  Sheila  had 
draught.  Even  with  a  poor  play  in  an  unready  condition, 
she  drew  the  people  to  the  box-office.  He  must  make  the 
most  of  her  treason. 

But  his  heart  was  sick.  He  was  managing  a  married 
star.  This  was  double  trouble  with  half  the  fun. 


CHAPTER   XXXVIII 

NOW  that  the  cat  was  out  of  the  bag,  and  the  husband 
out  of  the  closet,  Sheila  decided  to  produce  Bret  at 
the  train  the  next  morning.     He  was  about  to  get  a  taste 
of  the  gipsying  life  known  as  "trouping"  and  he  was  to 
learn  the  significance  of  the  one-night  stand. 

He  had  felt  so  shamefaced  for  his  part  in  the  deception 
of  Reben  that  when  he  visited  the  play  during  the  evening 
performance,  and  saw  the  much-discussed  embrace  re 
stored,  he  had  no  heart  to  make  a  vigorous  protest.  And 
Sheila  was  too  weary  after  the  two  performances  to  be 
hectored.  It  was  heartbreaking  to  him  to  see  her  so 
exhausted. 

"Where  do  we  go  from  here?"  he  asked,  helplessly. 

"Petoskey,"  she  yawned. 

" Petoskey!"  he  gasped.  "That's  in  Russia.  In  Heav 
en's  name,  do  we — 

He  was  ready  to  believe  in  almost  anything  imbecile. 
But  she  explained  that  their  Petoskey  was  in  Michigan. 
He  did  not  approve  of  Michigan. 

His  hatred  of  his  wife's  profession  began  to  take  deeper 
root.  It  flourished  exceedingly  when  they  had  to  get  up 
for  the  train  the  next  morning  at  six.  It  was  hard  enough 
for  him  to  begin  the  new  day.  Sheila's  struggles  to  fight 
off  sleep  were  desperate.  Sleep  was  like  an  octopus  whose 
many  arms  took  new  hold  as  fast  as  they  were  torn  loose. 
Bret  was  so  sorry  for  her  that  he  begged  her  to  let  the 
company  go  without  her.  She  could  take  a  later  train. 
But  even  her  sad  face  was  crinkled  with  a  smile  at  the 
impossibility  of  this  suggestion. 

268 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Breakfast  was  the  sort  of  meal  usually  flung  together 
by  servants  alarm-clocked  earlier  than  their  wont.  For 
all  their  gulping  and  hurry,  Bret  and  Sheila  nearly  missed 
the  train.  It  was  moving  as  they  clambered  aboard. 

"Which  is  the  parlor-car?"  Bret  asked  the  brakeman. 

"Ain't  none." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  we've  got  to  ride  all  day  in 
a  day  coach?" 

"That's  about  it,  Cap." 

Bret  was  furious.  Worse  yet,  the  train  was  so  crowded 
that  it  was  impossible  for  them  even  to  have  a  double 
space.  Their  suit-cases  had  to  be  distributed  at  odd 
points  in  racks,  under  seats,  and  at  the  end  of  the  car. 

Bret  remembered  that  he  had  forgotten  to  get  his 
ticket,  but  the  business-manager,  Mr.  McNish,  passed  by 
and  offered  his  congratulations  and  a  free  transportation, 
with  Mr.  Reben's  compliments.  Bret  did  not  want  to  be 
beholden  to  Mr.  Reben,  but  Sheila  prevailed  on  him  not 
to  be  ungracious. 

When  the  conductor  came  along  the  aisle  she  said, 
"Company." 

"Both?"  said  the  conductor,  and  she  smiled,  "Yes," 
and  giggled,  adding  to  Bret,  "You're  one  of  the  troupe 
now." 

Bret  did  not  seem  to  be  flattered. 

Reben  came  down  the  aisle  to  meet  the  bridegroom. 
He  was  doing  his  best  to  take  his  defeat  gracefully.  Bret 
could  not  even  take  his  triumph  so. 

Other  members  of  the  company  drifted  forward  and 
offered  their  felicitations.  They  made  themselves  at 
home  in  the  coach,  sitting  about  on  the  arms  of  seats 
and  exchanging  family  jokes. 

The  rest  of  the  passengers  craned  their  necks  to  stare 
at  the  bridegroom,  crimson  with  shame  and  anger.  Bret 
loathed  being  stared  at.  Sheila  did  not  like  it,  but  she 
was  used  to  it.  Both  writhed  at  the  well-meant  humor 
and  the  good  wishes  of  the  actors  and  actresses.  Their 

269 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

effusiveness  offended  Bret  mortally.  He  could  have  pro 
claimed  himself  the  luckiest  man  on  earth,  but  he  ob 
jected  to  being  called  so  by  these  actors.  If  he  had  been 
similarly  heckled  by  people  of  any  sort — college  friends, 
club  friends,  doctors,  lawyers,  merchants — he  would 
have  resented  their  manner,  for  everybody  hazes  bridal 
couples.  But  since  he  had  fallen  among  actors,  he  blamed 
actors  for  his  distress. 

Eldon  alone  failed  to  come  forward  with  good  wishes, 
and  Bret  was  unreasonable  enough  to  take  umbrage  at 
that.  Why  did  Eldon  remain  aloof?  Was  he  jealous? 
What  right  had  he  to  be  jealous? 

Altogether,  the  bridegroom  was  doing  his  best  to 
make  rough  weather  of  his  halcyon  sea.  Sheila  was  at 
her  wits'  end  to  cheer  him  who  should  have  been  cheer 
ing  her. 

At  noon  a  few  sandwiches  of  the  railroad  sort  were 
obtained  by  a  dash  to  a  station  lunch-counter.  Bret 
apologized  to  Sheila,  but  she  assured  him  that  he  was  not 
to  blame  and  was  not  to  mind  such  little  troubles;  they 
were  part  of  the  business.  He  minded  them  none  the  less 
and  he  hated  the  business. 

The  town  of  Petoskey,  when  they  reached  it,  did  not 
please  him  in  any  respect.  The  hotel  pleased  him  less. 
When  he  asked  for  two  rooms  with  bath  the  clerk  snick 
ered  and  gave  him  one  without.  He  explained  with  con 
tempt,  "They's  a  bath-room  right  handy  down  the  hall 
and  baths  are  a  quarter  extry." 

It  was  a  riddle  whether  it  were  cleanlier  to  keep  the 
grime  one  had  or  fly  to  a  bath-room  one  knew  not  of. 
When  Bret  and  Sheila  appeared  at  the  screen  door  which 
kept  the  flies  in  the  dining-room  they  were  beckoned  down 
the  line  by  an  Amazonian  head  waitress.  She  planted 
them  among  a  group  of  grangers  who  stared  at  Sheila  and 
picked  their  teeth  snappily. 

The  dinner  was  a  small-hotel  dinner — a  little  bit  of  a 
lot  of  things  in  a  flotilla  of  small  dishes. 

270 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

The  audience  at  the  theater  was  sparse  and  indifferent. 
The  play  had  begun  to  bore  Winfield.  It  irritated  him  to 
see  Sheila  repeating  the  same  love-scenes  night  after  night 
— especially  with  that  man  Eldon. 

After  the  play  supper  was  to  be  had  nowhere  except  at 
a  cheap  and  ill-conditioned  little  all-night  restaurant 
where  there  was  nothing  to  eat  but  egg  sandwiches  and 
pie,  the  pastry  thicker  and  hardly  more  digestible  than  the 
resounding  stone  china  it  was  served  on. 

The  bedroom  at  the  hotel  was  ill  ventilated,  the  plush 
furniture  greasy,  the  linen  coarse,  and  the  towels  few  and 
new.  Bret  declared  it  outrageous  that  his  beautiful,  his 
exquisite  bride  should  be  so  shabbily  housed,  fed  like  a 
beggar,  and  bedded  like  a  poor  relation.  Almost  all  of  his 
ill  temper  was  on  her  account,  and  she  could  not  but  love 
him  for  it. 

After  a  dolefully  realistic  night  came  again  the  poignant 
tragedy  of  early  rising,  another  gulped  breakfast,  another 
dash  for  the  train.  The  driver  of  the  hack  never  came. 
Bret  and  Sheila  waited  for  him  till  it  was  necessary  to 
run  all  the  way  to  the  station.  The  station  was  handier 
to  the  railroad  than  to  the  hotel.  Since  red-caps  were  an 
institution  unknown  to  Petoskey,  they  carried  their  own 
baggage. 

The  itinerary  of  the  day  included  a  change  of  trains 
and  an  eventual  arrival  at  no  less — and  no  more — a  place 
than  Sheboygan. 

There  they  found  a  county  fair  in  progress  and  the  hotels 
packed.  Decent  rooms  were  not  to  be  had  at  any  price. 
It  took  much  beseeching  even  to  secure  a  shelter  in  a 
sample-room  filled  with  long  tables  for  drummers  to 
display  their  wares  on.  They  waited  like  mendicants  for 
luncheon  in  an  overcrowded  dining-room  where  over 
driven  waitresses  cowed  the  timorous  guests.  Sheila  had 
not  time  to  finish  her  luncheon  before  she  must  hurry 
away  to  a  rehearsal.  Bret  left  his  and  went  with  her, 
racing  along  the  streets  and  growling: 

271 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"'Why  is  Reben  such  a  fool  as  to  play  in  towns  like 
this?" 

"He  has  to  play  somewhere,  honey,  to  whip  the  play 
into  shape,"  Sheila  panted. 

"  Well,  he's  whipping  you  out  of  shape." 

"I  don't  mind,  dearest.  It's  fun  to  me.  It's  all  part 
of  the  business." 

"Well,  I  want  you  to  get  out  of  the  business.  It's 
unfit  for  a  decent  woman." 

"Oh— honey!" 

It  was  a  feeble  little  wail  from  a  great  hurt.  Plainly 
Bret  would  never  comprehend  the  majestic  qualities  of  her 
art,  or  realize  that  its  inconveniences  were  no  more  than 
the  minor  hardships  of  an  army  on  a  great  campaign. 

At  the  rehearsal  the  first  of  Prior's  new  scenes  was 
gone  over.  It  emphasized  the  "heart-interest"  with  a 
vengeance.  Sheila  trembled  to  think  what  her  husband 
would  do  when  he  saw  it  played.  She  was  glad  that  it 
was  not  to  be  tried  until  the  following  week.  Every 
moment  of  postponement  for  the  inevitable  storm  was  so 
much  respite. 

They  rehearsed  all  afternoon.  The  struggle  for  dinner 
was  more  trying  than  for  the  luncheon.  The  performance 
was  early  and  hasty,  as  it  was  necessary  to  catch  a  train 
immediately  after  the  last  curtain,  in  order  to  reach  Bay 
City  for  the  Saturday  matinee.  Worse  yet,  they  had  to 
leave  the  car  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

This  time  it  was  Bret  who  was  hard  to  waken.  His  big 
body  was  so  famished  for  sleep  that  Sheila  was  afraid 
she  would  have  to  leave  him  on  the  train.  She  was  wiry, 
and  her  enthusiasm  for  the  battle  gave  her  a  courage  that 
her  disgusted  husband  lacked.  There  was  no  carriage  at 
the  station  and  Bret  stumbled  and  swore  drowsily  at  the 
dark  streets  and  the  intolerable  conditions. 

He  had  nothing  to  interest  him  except  the  infinite 
annoyances  and  exactions  of  his  wife's  career.  There  was 

272 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

nothing  to  reward  him  for  his  privations  except  to  lumber 
along  in  her  wake  like  a  coal-barge  hauled  by  a  tug. 

His  pride  was  mutinous,  and  it  seemed  a  degradation  to 
permit  his  bride  to  run  from  place  to  place  as  if  she  were 
a  fugitive  from  justice.  He  had  wealth  and  the  habit  of 
luxury,  and  his  idea  of  a  honeymoon  was  the  ultimate 
opposite  of  this  frenzied  gipsying. 

He  had  always  understood  that  actors  were  a  lazy  folk 
whose  life  was  one  of  easy  vagabondage,  with  all  the  vices 
that  indolence  fosters.  Three  days  of  trouping  had 
wrecked  his  strength;  yet  he  had  done  none  of  the  work 
but  the  travel. 

When  he  protested  the  next  morning  at  early  breakfast 
that  the  tour  would  be  the  death  of  them  both  Sheila 
looked  up  from  the  part  she  was  studying  and  laughed: 

"Cheer  up!  The  worst  is  yet  to  come.  We  haven't 
made  any  long  jumps  yet.  The  route-sheet  says  we  leave 
Bay  City  at  one  o'clock  to-night  and  get  to  Ishpeming  at 
half  past  four  to-morrow  afternoon.  We  rehearse  Sunday 
night  and  all  day  Monday,  play  that  night,  and  take  a 
train  at  midnight  back  to  Menominee.  From  there  we 
rush  back  to  Calumet,  and  then  on  to  Duluth." 

Bret  set  his  coffee-cup  down  hard  and  growled,  "Well, 
this  is  where  I  leave  you." 

He  spoke  truer  than  he  knew.  He  had  kept  his  family 
informed  of  his  whereabouts  by  night-letters,  in  which 
he  alluded  to  the  blissful  time  he  ought  to  have  been 
having.  When  he  took  Sheila  to  the  theater  for  the 
matinee  he  found  a  telegram  for  him. 

He  winced  at  the  address:  "Bret  Winfield,  Esq.,  care 
of  Miss  Sheila  Kemble,  Opera  House,  Bay  City."  He 
forgot  the  pinch  of  pride  when  he  read  the  message: 

Please  come  home  at  once  your  father  dangerously  ill  and 
asking  for  you. 

MOTHER. 


OHEILA  saw  the  anguish  of  dread  cover  his  face  like 
O  a  sudden  fling  of  ashes.  He  handed  the  telegram  to 
her,  and  she  put  her  arms  about  his  shoulders  to  uphold 
him  and  shelter  him  from  the  sledge  of  fate. 

"Poor  old  dad!"  he  groaned.  "And  mother!  I  must 
take  the  first  train." 

She  nodded  her  head  dismally. 

He  read  the  telegram  again  in  a  stupor,  and  mumbled, 
"  I  wish  you  could  come  with  me." 

"If  I  only  could!" 

"You  ought  to,"  he  urged.  * 

"Oh,  I  know  it — but  I  can't." 

"You  may  never  see  my  father  again." 

"Don't  say  that!  He'll  get  well,  honey;  you  mustn't 
think  anything  else.  Oh,  it's  too  bad!  it's  just  too  bad!" 

He  felt  lonely  and  afraid  of  what  was  ahead  of  him. 
He  was  afraid  of  his  father's  death,  and  of  a  funeral.  He 
was  terrified  at  the  thought  of  his  mother's  woe.  He 
could  feel  her  clutching  at  him  helplessly,  frantically,  and 
telling  him  that  he  was  all  she  had  left.  His  eyes  filled 
with  tears  at  the  vision  and  they  blinded  him  to  everything 
but  the  vision.  He  put  his  hands  out  through  the  mist 
and  caught  Sheila's  arms  and  pleaded: 

"You  ought  to  come  with  me,  now  of  all  times." 

She  could  only  repeat  and  repeat:  "I  know  it,  but  I 
can't,  I  can't.  You  see  that  I  can't,  don't  you,  honey?" 

His  voice  was  harsh  when  he  answered:  "No,  I  don't 
see  why  you  can't.  Your  place  is  there." 

She  cast  her  eyes  up  and  beat  her  palms  together  hope- 

274 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

lessly  over  the  complete  misunderstanding  that  thwarted 
the  union  of  their  souls.  She  took  his  hands  again  and 
squeezed  them  passionately. 

Reben  came  upon  them,  swinging  his  cane.  Seeing 
the  two  holding  hands,  he  essayed  a  frivolity.  "Honey 
moon  not  on  the  wane  yet?" 

Sheila  told  him  the  truth.  He  was  all  sympathy  at 
once.  His  race  made  him  especially  tender  to  filial  love, 
and  his  grief  brought  tears  to  his  eyes.  He  crushed 
Bret's  hands  in  his  own  and  poured  out  sorrow  like  an 
ointment.  His  deep  voice  trembled  with  fellowship: 

"If  I  could  only  do  anything  to  help  you!" 

Winfield  caught  at  the  proffer.  "You  can!  Let  Sheila 
go  home  with  me." 

Reben  gasped.  "My  boy,  my  boy!  It's  impossible! 
The  matinee  begins  in  half  an  hour.  She  should  be  mak 
ing  up  now." 

"Let  somebody  else  play  her  part." 

"There  is  no  understudy  ready.  We  never  select  the 
understudy  for  the  try-out  performances.  Sheila,  you 
must  understand." 

"I  do,  of  course;  but  poor  Bret — he  can't  seem  to." 

"Oh,  all  right,  I  understand,"  Winfield  sighed  with  a 
resignation  that  terrified  Sheila.  "What  train  can  I  get? 
Do  you  know?" 

Reben  knew  the  trains.  He  would  get  the  company- 
manager  to  secure  the  tickets.  Bret  must  go  by  way  of 
Detroit.  He  could  not  leave  till  after  five.  He  would 
reach  Buffalo  early  Sunday  morning  and  be  home  in  the 
late  afternoon. 

The  big  fellow's  frame  shook  with  anxiety.  So  much 
could  happen  in  twenty-four  hours.  It  would  seem  a  year 
to  his  poor  mother.  He  hurried  away  to  send  her  a  tele 
gram.  Sheila  paused  at  the  stage  door,  staring  after  his 
forlorn  figure;  then  she  darted  in  to  her  task. 

Bret  came  back  shortly  and  dropped  into  a  chair  in 
Sheila's  dressing-room.  His  eyes,  dulled  with  grief, 

275 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

watched  her  as  she  plastered  on  her  face  the  various 
layers  of  color,  spreading  the  carmine  on  cheek  and  ear 
with  savage  brilliance,  penciling  her  eyelashes  till  thick 
beads  of  black  hung  from  them,  painting  her  eyelids  blue 
above  and  below,  and  smearing  her  lips  with  scarlet. 

He  turned  from  her,  sick  with  disgust. 

Sheila  felt  his  aversion,  and  it  choked  her  when  she 
tried  to  comfort  him.  She  painted  her  arms  and  shoulders 
white  and  powdered  them  till  clouds  of  dust  rose  from 
the  puff.  Pennock  made  the  last  hooks  fast  and  Sheila 
rose  for  the  final  primpings  of  coquetry. 

Pennock  opened  the  door  of  the  dressing-room  to  listen 
for  the  cue.  When  the  time  came  Sheila  sighed,  ran  to 
Bret,  clasped  him  in  a  tight  embrace,  and  kissed  his  wet 
forehead.  Her  arms  left  white  streaks  across  his  coat, 
and  her  lips  red  marks  on  his  face. 

He  followed  to  watch  her  make  her  entrance.  She 
stood  a  moment  between  the  flats,  turned  and  stared  her 
adoration  at  him  through  her  viciously  leaded  eyelashes, 
and  wafted  him  a  sad  kiss.  Then  she  caught  up  her  train 
and  began  to  laugh  softly  as  from  a  distance.  She  ran 
out  into  the  glow  of  artificial  noon,  laughing.  A  faint 
applause  greeted  her,  the  muffled  applause  of  a  matinee 
audience's  gloved  hands. 

Bret  watched  her,  heard  her  voice  sparkle,  heard  it 
greeted  with  waves  of  hilarity.  He  could  not  realize  how 
broken-hearted  she  was  for  him.  He  could  not  under 
stand  how  separate  a  thing  her  stage  emotions  were  from 
her  personal  feelings. 

Good  news  would  not  have  helped  her  comedy;  bad 
news  could  hardly  alter  it.  She  went  through  her  well- 
learned  lines  and  intonations  as  a  first-class  soldier  does 
the  manual  of  arms  without  reference  to  his  love  or  grief. 

All  Bret  knew  was  that  his  wife  was  out  there,  laughing 
and  causing  laughter,  while  far  away  his  mother  was 
sobbing — sobbing  perhaps  above  the  chill  clay  of  his 
father. 

276 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

He  hurried  from  the  stage  door  to  pack  his  trunk.  He 
went  cursing  the  theater,  and  himself  for  lingering  in  its 
infamous  shadow.  He  did  not  come  back  till  the  play 
was  over  and  Sheila  in  her  street  clothes.  In  her  haste 
she  had  overlooked  traces  of  her  make-up — that  odious 
blue  about  the  eyes,  the  pink  edging  of  the  ears,  the  lead 
on  the  eyelashes. 

Once  more  Sheila  went  to  the  train  with  her  husband. 
They  clung  together  in  fierce  farewells,  repeated  and  re 
peated  till  the  train  was  moving  and  the  porter  must 
run  alongside  to  help  Bret  aboard. 

When  he  looked  back  he  could  not  see  Sheila's  pathetic 
figure  and  her  sad  face.  When  he  thought  of  her  he 
thought  of  her  laughing  in  her  motley.  All  the  next  day 
he  thought  of  her  in  the  theater  rehearsing. 

He  loved  her  perhaps  the  more  for  that  unattainable 
soul  of  hers.  He  had  won  her,  wed  her,  possessed  her, 
made  her  his  in  body  and  name;  but  her  soul  was  still 
uncaptured.  He  vowed  and  vowed  again  that  he  would 
make  her  altogether  his.  She  was  his  wife;  she  should 
be  like  other  wives. 

When  he  reached  home  his  father  was  dead.  His 
mother  was  too  weak  with  grief  to  rebuke  him  for  being 
on  a  butterfly-hunt  at  such  a  time. 

He  knelt  by  her  bed  and  held  her  in  his  arms  while  she 
told  him  of  his  father's  long  fight  to  keep  alive  till  his  boy 
came  back.  She  begged  him  not  to  leave  her  again,  and 
he  promised  her  that  he  would  make  her  home  his. 

The  days  that  ensued  were  filled  with  tasks  of  every 
solemn  kind.  There  was  the  funeral  to  prepare  for  and 
endure,  and  after  that  the  assumption  of  all  his  father's 
wealth.  This  came  to  him,  not  as  a  mighty  treasure  to 
squander,  but  as  a  delicate  invalid  to  nurture  and  protect. 

Sheila's  telegrams  and  letters  were  incessant  and  so  full  of 
devotion  for  him  that  they  had  room  for  little  about  herself. 

She  told  him  she  was  working  hard  and  missing  him 

277 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

terribly,  and  what  her  next  address  would  be.  She  tried 
vainly  to  mask  her  increasing  terror  of  the  dreadful  open 
ing  in  Chicago. 

He  wished  that  he  might  be  with  her,  yet  knew  that  he 
had  no  real  help  to  give  her.  He  prayed  for  her  success, 
but  with  a  mental  reservation  that  if  the  play  were  the 
direst  failure  he  would  not  be  sorry,  for  it  would  bring  them 
to  peace  the  sooner. 

He  tried  to  school  his  undisciplined  mind  to  the  Hercu 
lean  task  of  learning  in  a  few  days  what  his  father  had 
acquired  by  a  life  of  toil.  The  factory  ran  on  smoothly 
under  the  control  of  its  superintendents,  but  big  problems 
concerning  the  marketing  of  the  output,  consolidation 
with  the  trust,  and  enlargement  of  the  plant,  were  rising 
every  hour.  These  matters  he  must  decide  like  an  infant 
king  whose  ministers  disagree. 

To  his  shame  and  dismay,  he  could  not  give  his  whole 
heart  to  the  work;  his  heart  was  with  Sheila.  He  thought 
of  her  without  rancor  now.  He  recognized  the  bravery 
and  honor  that  had  kept  her  with  the  company.  As  she 
had  told  him  once  before,  treachery  to  Reben  would  be 
a  poor  beginning  of  her  loyalty  to  Bret.  The  very  things 
he  cherished  bitterly  against  her  turned  sweet  in  his 
thoughts.  He  decided  that  he  could  not  live  without  her, 
and  might  as  well  recognize  it. 

He  found  himself  clenching  his  hands  at  his  desk  and 
whispering  prayers  that  the  play  should  be  a  complete 
failure.  How  else  could  they  be  reunited  ?  He  could  not 
shirk  his  own  responsibilities.  It  was  not  a  man's  place 
to  give  up  his  career.  There  was  only  one  hope — the 
failure  of  the  play. 

But  "The  Woman  Pays"  was  a  success.  The  Grand 
Rapids  oracle  guessed  wrong.  As  sometimes  happens,  the 
city  critics  were  kinder  than  the  rural.  Sheila  sent  Bret 
a  double  night-telegram.  She  said  that  she  was  sorry  to 
say  that  the  play  had  "gone  over  big."  She  had  an 
enormous  ovation;  there  had  been  thirty  curtain  calls; 

278 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

the  audience  had  made  her  make  a  speech.  Reben  had 
said  the  play  would  earn  a  mint  of  money.  And  then  she 
added  that  she  missed  Bret  "terribly,"  and  loved  him 
"madly  and  nothing  else  mattered." 

The  next  day  she  telegraphed  him  that  the  critics  were 
"wonderful."  She  quoted  some  of  their  eulogies  and  an 
nounced  that  she  was  mailing  the  clippings  to  him.  But 
she  said  that  she  would  rather  hear  him  speak  one  word 
of  praise  than  have  them  print  a  million.  He  did  not 
believe  it,  but  he  liked  to  read  it. 

He  did  not  wait  to  receive  the  clippings.  He  gave  up 
opposing  his  ravenous  heart,  and  took  train  for  Chicago. 
He  could  not  bear  to  have  everybody  except  himself 
acclaiming  his  wife  in  superlatives. 

He  decided  to  surprise  her.  He  did  not  even  telegraph 
a  warning.  Indeed,  when  he  reached  Chicago  in  the 
early  evening,  he  resolved  to  see  the  performance  before 
he  let  her  know  he  was  in  town. 

He  could  not  get  by  Mr.  McNish,  who  was  "on  the 
door,"  without  being  recognized,  but  he  asked  McNish  not 
to  let  "Miss  Kemble"  know  that  he  was  in  the  house. 
McNish  agreed  readily;  he  did  not  care  to  agitate  Sheila 
during  the  performance.  After  the  last  curtain  fell  her 
emotions  would  be  her  own. 

McNish  was  glowing  as  he  watched  the  crowd  file  past 
the  ticket-taker.  He  chuckled:  "  It's  a  sell-out  to-night  I 
bet.  This  afternoon  we  had  the  biggest  first  matinee  this 
theater  has  known  for  years.  I  told  Reben  two  years  ago 
that  the  little  lady  was  star  material.  He  said  he'd  never 
thought  of  it.  She's  got  personality  and  she  gets  it  across. 
She  plays  herself,  and  that's  the  hardest  kind  of  acting 
there  is.  I  discover  her,  and  Reben  cops  the  credit  and 
the  coin.  Ain't  that  life  all  over?" 

Bret  agreed  that  it  was,  and  hurried  to  his  seat.  It 
was  in  the  exact  center  of  a  long  row.  He  was  completely 
surrounded  by  garrulous  women  trying  to  outchatter  even 
the  strenuous  coda  of  the  band. 

279 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

A  fat  woman  on  his  right  bulged  over  into  his  domain 
and  filled  the  arm  of  his  chair  with  her  thick  elbow.  A 
lean  woman  on  his  left  had  an  arm  some  inches  too  long 
for  her  space,  and  her  elbow  projected  like  a  spur  into 
Bret's  ribs.  He  could  have  endured  their  contiguity  if 
they  had  omitted  their  conversation.  The  overweening 
woman  was  chewing  gum  and  language  with  the  same 
grinding  motions,  giving  her  words  a  kind  of  stringy 
quality. 

"Jewer  see  this  Sheilar  Kemble?"  she  munched.  "I 
seen  her  here  some  time  ago.  She  didn't  have  a  very  big 
part,  but  she  played  it  perfect.  She  was  simpully  gur- 
rand.  I  says  at  the  time  to  the  gempmum  was  with  me, 
I  says,  '  Somebody  ought  to  star  that  girl.'  I  guess  I  must 
'a'  been  overheard,  for  here  she  isy 

."A  lady  frien'  o'  mine  went  last  night,  and  told  me  I 
mustn't  miss  it.  She  says  they  got  the  handsomest  actor 
playin'  the  lover — feller  name  of  Weldon  or  Weldrum  or 
something  like  that — but  anyway  she  says  he  makes  love 
something  elegant,  and  so  does  Sheilar.  This  frien'  o' 
mine  says  they  must  be  in  love  with  each  other,  for  nobody 
could  look  at  one  another  that  way  without  they  meant 
it.  Well,  we'll  soon  see." 

To  hear  his  wife's  name  and  Eldon's  chewed  up  together 
in  the  gum  of  a  strange  plebeian  was  disgusting. 

The  sharp-elbowed  woman  was  talking  all  the  while  in 
a  voice  of  affected  accents: 

"She's  almost  a  lady,  this  Kemble  gull.  Really,  she  was 
received  in  the  veribest  homes  hyah  lahst  wintuh.  Yes, 
I  met  hah  everywhah.  She  was  really  quite  refined — 
for  an  actress,  of  cawse.  Several  of  the  nicest  young  men 
made  quite  fools  of  themselves — quite.  Fawtunately 
their  people  saved  them  from  doing  anything  rahsh.  I 
suppose  she'll  upset  them  all  again  this  season.  There 
ought  to  be  some  fawm  of  inoculation  to  protect  young 
men  against  actresses.  Don't  you  think  so?  It's  fah 
more  dangerous  than  typhoid  fevah,  don't  you  think  so?" 

280 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

£H  about  him  Bret  heard  Sheila's  name  tossed  care 
lessly  as  a  public  property. 

The  curtain  rose  at  last  and  the  play  began.  Sheila 
made  a  conspicuously  inconspicuous  entrance  without 
preparation,  without  even  the  laughter  she  had  formerly 
employed.  She  was  just  there.  The  audience  did  not 
recognize  her  till  she  spoke,  then  came  a  volley  of  applause. 

Bret's  eyes  filled  with  tears.  She  was  beautiful.  She 
seemed  to  be  sad.  Was  she  thinking  of  him  ?  He  wanted 
to  clamber  across  the  seats  and  over  the  footlights  to 
protect  her  once  more  from  the  mob,  not  from  its  ridicule 
as  at  that  first  sight  of  her,  but  from  its  more  odious 
familiarity  and  possession. 

He  hardly  recognized  the  revised  play.  The  character 
she  played — and  played  in  her  very  selfhood — was  emo 
tional  now,  and  involved  in  a  harrowing  situation  with  a 
mystery  as  to  her  origin,  and  hints  of  a  past,  a  scandal 
into  which  an  older  woman,  an  adventuress,  had  decoyed 
her. 

Then  Eldon  came  on  the  scene  and  they  fell  in  love  at 
once;  but  she  was  afraid  of  her  past,  and  evaded  him  for 
his  own  sake.  He  misunderstood  her  and  accused  her  of 
despising  him  because  he  was  poor ;  and  she  let  him  think 
so,  because  she  wanted  him  to  hate  her. 

The  audience  wept  with  luxurious  misery  over  her 
saintly  double-dealing.  The  gum-chewer's  tears  salted 
her  pepsin  and  she  commented:  "Ain't  it  awful  what 
beasts  you  men  are  to  us  trusting  girrls!  Think  of  the 
demon  that  loored  that  gird  to  her  roon!" 

The  sharp-elbowed  woman  dabbed  her  eyes  with  a 
handkerchief  and  said  that  it  was  ' '  really  quite  affecting — • 
quite.  I've  made  myself  ridiculous."  Then  she  blew  her 
nose  as  elegantly  as  that  proletarian  feat  can  be  ac 
complished. 

Winfield  was  astounded  at  the  changes  in  the  play.     A 
few  new  scenes  altered  the  whole  meaning  of  it.     Every 
thing  pink  before  was  purple  now.     The  rdles  of  Sheila 
19  281 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

and  Eldon  had  been  rendered  melodramatic.  Sheila's 
comedy  was  accomplished  now  in  a  serious  way.  With 
a  quaint  little  pout,  or  two  steps  to  the  side  and  a  turn  of 
the  head,  she  threw  the  audience  into  convulsions. 

Suddenly  Sheila  would  quench  the  hilarity  with  a  word, 
and  the  hush  would  be  enormous  and  strangely  anxious; 
then  the  handkerchiefs  would  come  out. 

Bret  would  have  felt  with  the  mob  had  the  actress  been 
any  woman  on  earth  but  his  own.  That  made  all  the 
difference  in  the  world.  He  told  himself  that  she  was  the 
victim  of  her  art.  But  his  ire  burned  against  Eldon,  since 
Eldon  made  love  to  her  for  nearly  three  hours.  And  he 
said  and  did  noble  things  that  made  her  love  him  more  and 
more.  And  there  was  no  lack  of  caresses  now. 

In  the  second  act  Eldon  overtook  the  fugitive  Sheila 
and  claimed  her  for  his  own.  She  broke  loose  and  ran 
from  him,  weeping,  because  she  felt  "unworthy  of  a  good 
man's  love."  But  she  followed  him  with  eyes  of  doglike 
adoration.  Her  hands  quivered  toward  him  and  she  held 
them  back  "for  his  dear  sake."  Then  he  caught  her  again 
and  would  not  let  her  escape.  He  held  her  by  both  hands. 

' '  Mary !" — that  was  her  name  in  the  play.  ' '  Mary, ' '  he 
cried,  "I  love  you.  The  sight  of  you  fills  my  eyes  with 
longing.  The  touch  of  your  hand  sets  my  very  soul  on 
fire.  I  love  you.  I  can't  live  without  you!" 

He  seized  her  in  his  arms,  crushed  her  fiercely.  She 
struggled  a  moment,  then  began  to  yield,  to  melt  toward 
him.  She  lifted  her  eyes  to  his— then  turned  them  away 
again.  The  audience  could  read  in  them  passion  fighting 
against  renunciation.  She  murmured: 

"Oh,  Jack!    Jack!     I— 

He  pressed  his  conquest.  "You  do  love  me!  You 
must !  You  can't  scorn  a  love  like  mine.  I  have  seen  you 
weeping.  I  can  read  in  your  eyes  that  you  love  me. 
Your  eyes  belong  to  me.  Your  lips  are  mine.  Give  them 
tome!  Kiss  me!  Kiss  me — Ma-ry!" 

She  quivered  with  surrender.     The  audience  burned 

282 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

with  excitement.  The  lover  urged  his  cause  with  select 
language. 

It  was  the  sort  of  thing  the  women  in  the  audience  did 
not  get  from  their  own  lovers  or  husbands;  the  sort  of 
thing  the  men  in  the  audience  wanted  to  be  able  to  say  in 
a  crisis  and  could  not.  Therefore,  for  all  its  banality,  it 
thrilled  them.  They  ate  it  up.  It  was  a  sentimental 
banquet  served  at  this  emotion  restaurant  every  evening. 

At  length,  as  Eldon  repeated  his  demand  in  tones  that 
swept  the  sympathetic  strings  in  every  bosom  to  response, 
Mary  began  to  yield;  her  hands  climbed  Eldon's  arms 
slowly,  paused  on  his  shoulders.  In  a  moment  they  would 
plunge  forward  and  clasp  him  about  the  neck. 

Her  lips  were  lifted,  pursed  to  meet  his.  And  then — 
as  the  audience  was  about  to  scream  with  suspense — she 
thrust  herself  away  from  him,  broke  loose,  moaning: 

"No,  I  am  unworthy — no,  no — I  can't,  I  don't  love 
you — no — no!" 

The  curtain  fell  on  another  flight. 

Bret  wanted  to  push  through  the  crowd  and  go  back 
to  the  stage  to  forbid  the  play  from  going  on.  But  he 
would  have  had  to  squeeze  past  the  fat  woman's  form 
or  stride  across  the  lean  woman's  protrusive  knees.  And 
fat  women  and  men,  and  lean,  were  wedged  in  the  seats  on 
both  sides  of  him.  He  was  imprisoned  in  his  wrath. 

As  if  his  own  doubts  and  certainties  were  not  torture 
enough,  he  had  to  hear  them  voiced  in  the  dialects  of 
others. 

The  gumstress  was  saying:  "Well,  I  guess  that  frien'  o' 
mine  got  it  right  when  she  says  those  two  actors  must  be 
in  love  with  each  other.  I  tell  you  no  girrl  can  look  at  a 
feller  with  those  kind  of  looks  without  there  bein'  some- 
'thin'  doin',  you  take  it  from  me.  No  feller  like  Mr.  Eldon 
is  goin'  to  hold  no  beauty  like  Sheila  in  his  arms  every 
evening  and  not  fall  in  love  with  her." 

Her  escort  was  encouraged  by  her  enthusiasm  to 
rhapsodize  over  Sheila  on  his  own  account.  It  seemed 

283 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

to  change  the  atmosphere.  He  had  paid  for  both  seats, 
but  he  had  not  bought  free  speech.  He  said — with  as 
little  tact  as  one  might  expect  from  a  man  who  would 
pay  court  to  that  woman: 

"Well,  all  I  gotter  say  is,  if  that  guy  gets  wore  out 
huggin'  Sheila  I'll  take  his  place  and  not  charge  him  a 
cent.  Some  snap,  he  has,  spendin'  his  evenin's  huggin' 
and  kissin'  an  Ai  beaut  like  her  and  gettin'  paid  for  it." 
He  seemed  to  realize  a  sudden  fall  in  the  temperature. 
Perhaps  he  noted  that  the  gum-crunching  jaw  had  paused 
and  the  elastic  sweetmeat  hung  idle  in  the  mill.  He  tried 
to  retreat  with  a  weak : 

"But  o'  course  she  gets  paid  for  huggin'  him,  too." 

The  anxious  escort  bent  forward  to  look  into  his  com 
panion's  face.  He  caught  a  glimpse  of  Bret's  eyes  and 
wondered  how  that  maniac  came  there.  He  sank  back 
alarmed  just  as  Bret  realized  that,  however  unendurable 
such  comment  was,  he  could  not  resent  it  while  his  wife 
belonged  to  the  public;  he  could  only  resolve  to  take  her 
out  of  the  pillory. 

But  his  Gehenna  was  not  ended  yet,  for  he  must  hear 
more  from  the  woman. 

"Well,  o'  course,  Mr.  Jeggle,  if  you're  goin'  to  fall  for 
an  actress  as  easy  as  that,  you're  not  the  man  I  should  of 
thought  you  was.  But  that's  men  all  over.  An  actress 
gets  'em  every  time. 

"  I  could  of  went  on  the  stage  myself.  Ma  always  said 
I  got  temper'munt  to  beat  the  band.  But  she  said  if  I 
ever  disgraced  her  so  far  as  to  show  my  face  before  the 
footlights  I  need  never  come  home.  I'd  find  the  door 
closed  against  me. 

"And  my  gempmum  friend  at  that  time  says  if  I  done 
so  he'd  beat  me  with  a  rollin'-pin.  The  way  he  come  to 
use  such  words  was  he  was  travelin'  for  a  bakery-supply 
house — he  was  kind  of  rough  in  his  talk — nice,  though — 
and  eyes ! — umm !  Well,  him  and  I  quarreled.  I  found  he 
had  two  other  v/ives  on  his  route  and  I  refused  to  see  him 

284 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

again — that's  his  ring  there  now.  He  was  a  wicked  devil, 
but  he  did  draw  the  line  at  actresses.  He  married  often, 
but  he  drew  the  line:  and  he  says  no  actress  should  ever 
be  a  wife  of  his. 

"And  he  had  it  right.  No  sane  man  ain't  goin'  to  leave 
his  wife  layin'  round  loose  in  the  arms  of  any  handsome 
actor,  not  if  he's  a  real  man.  If  she'll  kiss  him  like  that 
in  public — well,  I  say  no  more.  Not  that  I  blame  a  poor 
actress  for  goin'  wrong.  I  never  believe  in  being  merciless 
to  the  fallen.  It's  the  fault  of  the  stage.  The  stage  is  a 
nawful  immor'l  place,  Mr.  Jeggle.  The  way  I  get  it  is 
this:  if  a  girl's  not  ummotional  she's  got  no  right  on  the 
stage.  If  she  is  ummotional  she's  got  no  chance  to  stay 
good  on  the  stage.  Do  you  see  what  I  mean?" 

Mr.  Jeggle  said  he  saw  what  she  meant  and  he  forbore 
to  praise  Sheila  further.  He  changed  the  perilous  subject 
hastily  and  lowered  his  voice. 

Bret,  on  a  gridiron  of  intolerable  humiliation,  could 
hear  now  the  dicta  of  the  elbow-woman. 

"I  fancy  the  young  men  in  Chicago  are  quite  safe  from 
that  Kemble  gull  this  season.  She  must  be  hopelessly 
infatuated  with  that  actor.  And  no  wonder.  If  she 
doesn't  keep  him  close  to  hah,  though,  he'll  play  havoc 
with  every  gull  in  town.  He's  quite  too  beautiful— 
quite!" 

In  the  last  act  Sheila  poured  out  the  confession  of  her 
sins  to  Eldon.  This  was  a  bit  that  Bret  had  not  seen, 
and  it  poured  vinegar  into  his  wounds  to  hear  his  own  wife 
announcing  to  a  thousand  people  how  she  had  been 
duped  and  deceived  by  a  false  marriage  to  a  man  who  had 
never  understood  her.  That  was  bad  enough,  but  to 
have  Eldon  play  the  saint  and  forgive  her — Bret  gripped 
the  chair  arms  in  a  frenzy. 

Eldon  offered  her  the  shelter  of  his  name  and  the  haven 
of  his  love.  And  she  let  him  hold  her  in  his  arms  while 
he  poured  across  her  shoulder  his  divine  sentiments. 
Now  and  then  she  would  turn  her  head  and  gaze  up  at 

285 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

him  in  worship  and  longing,  and  at  last,  with  an  irresistible 
passion,  she  whirled  and  threw  her  arms  around  him  and 
gave  him  her  kisses,  and  his  arms  tightened  about  her  in 
a  frenzy  of  rapture. 

That  could  not  be  acting.     Bret  swore  that  it  was  real. 

They  clung  together  till  several  humorous  characters 
appeared  at  doors  and  windows  and  she  broke  away  in 
confusion.  There  were  explanations,  untying  of  knots  and 
tying  of  others,  and  the  play  closed  in  a  comedy  finish. 

The  curtain  went  down  and  up  and  down  and  up  in  a 
storm  of  applause,  and  Sheila  bowed  and  bowed,  holding 
Eldon's  hand  and  generously  recommending  him  to  the 
audience.  He  bowed  to  her  and  bowed  himself  off  and 
left  her  standing  and  nodding  with  quaint  little  ducks  of 
the  head  and  mock  efforts  to  escape,  mock  expressions  of 
surprise  at  finding  the  curtain  up  again  and  the  audience 
still  there. 

Bret  had  to  wait  till  the  women  got  into  their  hats  and 
wraps.  They  were  talking,  laughing,  and  sopping  up 
their  tears.  They  had  been  well  fed  on  sorrow  and  joy 
and  they  were  ready  for  supper  and  sleep. 

Bret  wanted  to  fight  his  way  through  in  football  man 
ner,  but  he  could  hardly  move.  The  crowd  ebbed  out 
with  the  deliberation  of  a  glacier,  and  he  could  not  escape 
either  the  people  or  their  comments.  The  Chicago  papers 
had  not  heard  of  Sheila's  marriage  to  him.  He  was  a 
nonentity.  The  sensation  of  the  town  was  the  romance 
of  Sheila  Kemble  and  Floyd  Eldon. 

When  at  last  Bret  was  free  of  the  press  he  dashed  round 
to  the  stage  entrance.  The  old  doorkeeper  made  no  re 
sistance,  for  the  play  was  over  and  visitors  often  came 
back  to  pay  their  compliments  to  the  troupe.  Bret  was 
the  first  to  arrive. 

In  his  furious  haste  he  stumbled  down  the  steps  to  the 
stage  and  almost  sprawled.  He  had  to  wait  while  a 
squad  of  "  grips  "  went  by  with  a  huge  folded  flat  repre 
senting  the  whole  side  of  a  canvas  house. 

286 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

He  stepped  forward;  a  sandbag  came  down  and  struck 
him  on  the  shoulder.  He  tripped  on  the  cables  of  the 
box  lights  and  lost  his  glasses.  While  he  groped  about 
for  them  he  heard  the  orchestra,  muffled  by  the  curtain, 
playing  the  audience  out  to  a  boisterous  tune.  His 
clutching  fingers  were  almost  stepped  on  by  two  men 
carrying  away  a  piece  of  solid  stairway. 

Before  he  found  his  glasses  he  was  demoniac  with  rage. 
He  rubbed  them  on  his  sleeve,  set  them  in  place,  and  again 
a  departing  wall  obstructed  his  view.  An  actress  and  an 
actor  walked  into  him.  At  last  he  found  the  clear  stage 
ahead  of  him.  He  made  out  a  group  at  the  center  of  it. 
McNish,  Batterson,  and  Prior  were  in  jovial  conference, 
slapping  each  other's  shoulders  and  chortling  with  the 
new  wine  of  success. 

He  brushed  by  them  and  saw  Sheila  at  last.  Reben  was 
holding  her  by  one  arm;  his  other  hand  was  on  Eldon's 
shoulder.  He  was  telling  them  of  the  big  leap  in  the 
box-office  receipts. 

Sheila  seemed  rapturous  with  pride  and  contentment. 
Bret  saw  her  murmur  something  to  Eldon.  He  could  not 
hear  what  it  was,  but  he  heard  Eldon  chuckle  delightedly. 
Then  he  called: 

"Eldon!" 

Eldon  looked  forward  just  in  time  to  see  Bret  coming 
on  like  a  striding  giant,  just  in  time  to  see  the  big  arm 
swing  up  in  a  rigid  drive,  shoulder  and  side  and  all. 

The  clenched  fist  caught  Eldon  under  the  chin  and 
sent  him  backward  across  a  heavy  table. 


CHAPTER  XL 

thud  of  the  fist,  the  grunt  of  Bret's  effort,  the 
shriek  of  Sheila,  the  clatter  of  Eldon's  fall,  the  hub 
bub  of  the  startled  spectators,  were  all  jumbled. 

When  Eldon,  dazed  almost  to  unconsciousness,  gathered 
himself  together  for  self-defense  and  counter  attack,  the 
stage  was  revolving  about  him.  Instinctively  he  put  up 
his  guard,  clenched  his  right  fist,  and  shifted  clear  of  the 
table. 

Then  his  anger  flamed  through  his  bewilderment.  He 
realized  who  had  struck  him,  and  he  dimly  understood 
why.  A  blaze  of  rage  against  this  foreigner,  this  vandal, 
shot  up  in  his  soul,  and  he  advanced  on  Winfield  with  his 
arm  drawn  back.  But  he  found  Winfield  struggling  with 
Batterson  and  McNish,  who  had  flung  themselves  on  him, 
grappling  his  arms.  Eldon  stopped  with  his  fists  poised. 
He  could  not  strike  that  unprotected  face,  though  it  was 
gray  with  hatred  of  him. 

An  instant  he  paused,  then  unclenched  his  hand  and 
fell  to  straightening  his  collar  and  rubbing  his  stinging 
flesh.  Sheila  had  run  between  the  two  men  in  a  panic. 
All  her  thought  was  to  protect  her  husband.  Her  eyes 
blazed  against  Eldon.  He  saw  the  look,  and  it  hurt  him 
worse  than  his  other  shame.  He  laughed  bitterly  into 
Bret's  face. 

"We're  even  now.  I  struck  you  when  you  didn't  ex 
pect  it  because  you  didn't  belong  on  the  stage.  You 
don't  belong  here  now.  Get  off!  Get  off  or — God  help 
you!" 

This  challenge  infuriated  Bret,  and  he  made  such 

288 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

violent  effort  to  reach  Eldon  that  Batterson,  Prior, 
McNish,  and  an  intensely  interested  and  hopeful  group 
of  stage-hands  could  hardly  smother  his  struggles.  He 
bent  and  wrestled  like  the  withed  Samson,  and  his  hatred 
for  Eldon  could  find  no  word  bitter  enough  but  "You — 
you — you  actor !' ' 

Eldon  laughed  at  this  taunt  and  answered  with  equal 
contempt,  "You  thug — you  business  man!"  Then,  see 
ing  how  Sheila  urged  Bret  away,  how  dismayed  and  fran 
tic  she  was,  he  cried  in  Bret's  face:  "You  thought  you 
struck  me — but  it  was  your  wife  you  struck  in  the  face!" 

Sheila  did  not  thank  him  for  that  pity.  She  silenced 
him  with  a  glare,  then  turned  again  to  her  husband,  put 
her  arms  about  his  arms,  and  clung  to  them  with  little 
fetters  that  he  could  not  break  for  fear  of  hurting  her. 
She  laid  her  head  on  his  breast  and  talked  to  his  battling 
heart  : 

"Oh,  Bret,  Bret!  honey,  my  love!  Don't,  don't!  I 
can't  bear  it!  You'll  kill  me  if  you  fight  any  more!" 

The  fights  of  men  and  dogs  are  rlmost  never  carried  to 
a  finish.  One  surrenders  or  runs  or  a  crowd  interferes. 

Winfield  felt  all  his  strength  leave  him.  His  wife's 
voice  softened  him;  the  triumph  of  his  registered  blow 
satisfied  him  to  a  surprising  degree;  the  conspicuousness 
of  his  position  disgusted  him.  He  nodded  his  head  and 
his  captors  let  him  go. 

The  reaction  and  the  exhaustion  of  wrath  weakened 
him  so  that  he  could  hardly  stand,  and  Sheila  supported 
him  almost  as  much  as  he  supported  her. 

And  now  Reben  began  on  him.  An  outsider  had  in 
vaded  the  sanctum  of  his  stage,  had  attacked  one  of  his 
people — an  actor  who  had  made  good.  Winfield  had 
broken  up  the  happy  family  of  success  with  an  omen  of 
scandal. 

Reben  denounced  him  in  a  livid  fury:  "Why  did  you 
do  it?  Why?  What  right  have  you  to  come  back  here 

289 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

and  slug  one  of  my  actors?  Why?  He  is  a  gentleman! 
Your  wife  is  a  lady !  Why  should  you  be — what  you  are  ? 
You  should  apologize,  you  should!" 

"Apologize!"  Bret  sneered,  with  all  loathing  in  his 
grin. 

Eldon  flared  at  the  look,  but  controlled  himself.  "He 
doesn't  owe  me  any  apology.  Let  him  apologize  to  his 
wife,  if  he  has  any  decency  in  him." 

He  sat  down  on  the  table,  but  stood  up  again  lest  he 
appear  weak.  Again  Sheila  threw  him  a  look  of  hatred. 
Then  she  began  to  coax  Winfield  from  the  scene,  whisper 
ing  to  him  pleadingly  and  patting  his  arms  soothingly: 

"Come  away,  honey.  Come  away,  please.  They're 
all  staring.  Don't  fight  any  more,  please — oh,  please,  for 
my  sake!" 

He  suffered  her  to  lead  him  into  the  wings  and  through 
the  labyrinth  to  her  dressing-room. 

And  now  the  stage  was  like  a  church  at  a  funeral  after 
the  dead  has  been  taken  away.  Everybody  felt  that 
Sheila  was  dead  to  the  theater.  The  look  in  her  eyes,  her 
failure  to  rebuke  her  husband  for  his  outrage  on  the  com 
pany,  her  failure  to  resent  his  attitude  toward  herself — 
all  these  pointed  to  a  slavish  submission.  Everybody 
knew  that  if  Sheila  took  it  into  her  head  to  leave  the 
stage  there  would  be  no  stopping  her. 

The  curtain  went  up,  disclosing  the  empty  house  with 
all  the  soul  gone  out  of  it.  In  the  cavernous  balconies  and 
the  cave  of  the  orchestra  the  ushers  moved  about  banging 
the  seats  together.  They  went  waist-deep  in  the  rows, 
vanishing  as  they  stooped  to  pick  up  programs  and  rub 
bish.  They  were  exchanging  light  persiflage  with  the 
charwomen  who  were  spreading  shrouds  over  the  long 
windrows.  The  ushers  and  the  scrub-ladies  knew  nothing 
of  what  had  taken  place  after  the  curtain  fell.  They 
knew  strangely  little  about  theatrical  affairs. 

They  were  hardly  interested  in  the  groups  lingering 

290 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

on  the  stage  in  quiet,  after-the-funeral  conversation. 
But  the  situation  was  vitally  interesting  to  the  actors  and 
the  staff.  Without  Sheila  the  play  would  be  starless. 
How  could  it  go  on?  The  company  would  be  disbanded, 
the  few  weeks  of  salary  would  not  have  paid  for  the  long 
rehearsals  or  the  costumes.  The  people  would  be  taken 
back  to  New  York  and  dumped  on  the  market  again,  and 
at  a  time  when  most  of  the  opportunities  were  gone. 

It  meant  a  relapse  to  poverty  for  some  of  them,  a  post 
ponement  of  ambitions  and  of  loves,  a  further  deferment 
of  old  bills;  it  meant  children  taken  out  of  good  schools, 
parents  cut  off  from  their  allowances;  it  meant  all  that 
the  sudden  closing  of  any  other  factory  means. 

The  disaster  was  so  unexpected  and  so  outrageous  that 
some  of  them  found  it  incredible.  They  could  not  believe 
that  Sheila  would  not  come  back  and  patch  up  a  peace 
with  Reben  and  Eldon  and  let  the  success  continue. 
Successes  were  so  rare  and  so  hard  to  make  that  it  was 
unbelievable  that  this  tremendous  gold-mine  should  be 
closed  down  because  of  a  little  quarrel,  a  little  jealousy, 
a  little  rough  temper  and  hot  language. 

Eldon  alone  did  not  believe  that  Sheila  would  return. 
He  had  loved  her  and  lost  her.  He  had  known  her  great 
ambitions,  how  lofty  and  beautiful  they  had  been.  He 
had  dreamed  of  climbing  the  heights  at  her  side;  then  he 
had  learned  of  her  marriage  and  had  seen  how  completely 
her  art  had  ceased  to  be  the  big  dream  of  her  soul,  how 
completely  it  had  been  shifted  to  a  place  secondary  to  love. 

No,  Sheila  would  not  make  peace.  Sheila  was  dead  to 
this  play,  and  this  play  dead  without  her,  and  without  this 
play  Sheila  would  die.  Of  this  he  felt  solemnly  assured. 

Therefore  when  the  others  expressed  their  sympathy  for 
the  attack  he  had  endured,  or  made  jokes  about  it,  he  did 
not  boast  of  what  he  might  have  done,  or  apologize  for 
what  he  had  left  undone,  or  try  to  laugh  it  off  or  lie  it  off. 

He  could  think  only  solemnly  of  the  devastation  in  an 
artist's  career  and  the  deep  damnation  of  her  taking  off. 

291 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Batterson  said,  "Say,  that  was  a  nasty  one  he  handed 
you." 

Eldon  confessed:  "Yes,  it  nearly  knocked  my  head  off; 
but  it  was  coming  to  me." 

' '  Why  didn't  you  hand  him  one  back  ?' ' 

"How  could  I  hit  him  when  you  held  his  hands?  How 
could  I  hit  him  when  his  wife  was  clinging  to  him?  And 
what's  a  blow?  I've  had  worse  ones  than  that  in  knock 
down  and  (^ag-out  fights.  I'll  get  a  lot  more  later,  no 
doubt.  But  I  couldn't  hit  Winfield.  He  doesn't  under 
stand.  Sheila  has  trouble  enough  ahead  of  her  with  him. 
Poor  Sheila!  She's  the  one  that  will  pay.  The  rest  of 
us  will  get  other  jobs.  But  Sheila  is  done  for." 

By  now  the  scenery  was  all  folded  and  stacked  against 
the  walls.  The  drops  were  lost  in  the  flies.  The  furniture 
and  properties  were  withdrawn.  The  bare  walls  of  the 
naked  stage  were  visible. 

The  electrician  was  at  the  switchboard,  throwing  off 
the  house  lights  in  order.  They  went  out  like  great  eyes 
closing.  The  theater  grew  darker  and  more  forlorn. 
The  stage  itself  yielded  to  the  night.  The  footlights  and 
borders  blinked  and  were  gone.  There  was  no  light  save 
a  little  glow  upon  a  standard  set  in  the  center  of  the  apron. 

Eldon  sighed  and  went  to  his  dressing-room. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

EANWHILE  Sheila  was  immured  with  her  hus- 
lYl  band.  She  sent  Pennock  away  and  locked  the 
door,  pressed  Bret  into  a  chair,  and  knelt  against  his 
knee  and  stretched  her  arms  up. 

"What  is  it,  honey?  What's  happened?  I  didn't 
know  you  were  within  a  thousand  miles  of  here." 

He  was  still  ugly  enough  to  growl,  "Evidently  not!" 

She  seemed  to  understand  and  recoiled  from  him,  sank 
back  on  her  heels  as  if  his  fist  had  struck  her  down. 
"What  do  you  mean?"  she  whispered.  "That  I — I — - 
You  can't  mean  you  distrust  me?" 

"That  dog  loves  you  and  you — " 

"Don't  say  it!"  She  rose  to  her  knees  again  and  put 
up  her  hands.  "I  could  never  forgive  you  if  you  said 
that  now — and  our  honeymoon  just  begun." 

"Honeymoon!"  he  laughed.  "Look  at  this."  He 
held  up  his  right  hand.  Grease-paint  from  Eldon's  jaw 
was  on  his  knuckles.  He  put  his  finger  on  her  cheek 
and  it  was  covered  with  the  same  unction.  Then  he 
rubbed  the  odious  ointment  from  his  hands.  She  blushed 
under  her  rouge. 

"  I  know  it's  been  a  pitiful  honeymoon.  But  I  couldn't 
help  it,  Bret.  I  did  what  I  could.  It  has  been  harder  for 
me  than  for  you,  and  I'm  just  worn  out.  There's  no  joy 
in  the  world  for  me.  The  success  is  nothing." 

"He  loves  you,  I  tell  you,  and  you  let  him  make  love 
to  you." 

"Of  course,  honey;  it's  in  the  play;  it's  in  the  play!" 

"Not  love  like  that.  Why,  everybody  in  the  audience 

293 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

was  saying  it  was  Teal.  All  the  people  round  me  were 
saying  you  two  were  in  love  with  each  other." 

"That's  what  we  were  working  for,  isn't  it?" 

"Oh,  not  the  characters,  but  you  two;  you  and  Eldon. 
Couldn't  I  see  how  he  looked  at  you,  how  you  looked  at 
him,  how  you — you  crushed  him  in  your  arms?" 

"How  else  could  we  show  that  the  characters  were 
madly  in  love  with  each  other,  dear?" 

"But  you  didn't  have  to  play  it  so  earnestly." 

"It  wouldn't  be  honest  not  to  do  our  best,  would  it? 
Can't  you  understand?" 

"I  can  understand  that  my  wife  was  in  the  arms  of  a 
man  that  loves  her,  and  that  even  if  you  don't  love  him, 
you  pretended  to,  and  he  took  advantage  of  it  to — to — 
to  kiss  you!" 

"Why,  he  didn't  kiss  me,  honey." 

"I  saw  him." 

"No,  you  didn't.  We  just  pretended  to  kiss  each 
other.  Not  that  a  stage  kiss  makes  any  difference 
with  rouge  pressing  on  grease-paint — but,  anyway,  he 
didn't." 

"You'll  be  telling  me  he  didn't  make  love  to  you  next." 

"Of  course  he  didn't,  honey.  We'd  be  fined  for  it  if 
Reben  or  Batterson  had  noticed  it;  but  the  fact  is  we 
were  trying  to  break  each  other  up.  Actors  are  always 
doing  that  when  they're  sure  of  a  success.  We've  been 
under  a  heavy  strain,  you  know,  and  now  we  let  down  a 
little." 

Bret  could  hardly  believe  what  he  wanted  so  to  believe — 
that  while  the  audience  was  sobbing  the  actors  were  jug 
gling  with  emotions,  the  mere  properties  of  their  trade. 
He  asked,  grimly,  "If  he  wasn't  making  love  to  you,  what 
was  he  saying?" 

"It  was  nothing  very  clever.  He's  not  witty,  Eldon; 
he's  rather  heavy  when  he  tries  to  write  his  own  stuff. 
He  accused  me  of  letting  the  scene  lag,  and  he  was  whisper 
ing  to  me  that  I  was  '  asleep  at  the  switch,  and  the  switch 

294 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

was  falling  off,'  and  I  answered  him  back  that  Dulcie 
Ormerod  would  please  him  better." 

"Dulcie  Ormerod?    Who's  Dulcie  Ormerod?" 

"Oh,  she's  a  little  tike  of  an  actress  that  took  my  place 
in  the  '  Friend  in  Need '  company  a  long  while  ago.  And 
she's  come  on  here  to  be  my  understudy.  Eldon  hates 
her  because  she  makes  love  to  him  all  the  time." 

Bret's  gaze  pierced  her  eyes,  trying  to  find  a  lie  behind 
their  defense.  "And  you  dare  to  tell  me  that  you  and 
Eldon  were  joking?" 

"Of  course  we  were,  honey.  If  I'd  been  in  love  with 
him  I  wouldn't  choose  the  theater  to  display  it  in,  with  a 
packed  house  watching,  would  I?  If  we'd  been  carried 
away  with  our  own  emotion  we'd  have  played  the  scene 
badly. 

"Another  thing  happened.  Batterson  noticed  that 
something  was  wrong  with  our  work,  and  he  stood  in  the 
wings  close  to  me  and  began  to  whip  us  up.  He  was 
snarling  at  us:  'Get  to  work,  you  two.  Put  some  ginger 
in  it.'  And  he  swore  at  us.  That  made  us  work  harder." 

Bret  was  dumfounded.  "You  mean  to  tell  me  that 
you  played  a  love-scene  better  because  the  stage-manager 
was  swearing  at  you?" 

Sheila  frowned  at  his  ignorance.  "Of  course,  you  dear 
old  stupid.  Acting  is  like  horse-racing.  Sometimes  we 
need  the  spur  and  the  whip;  sometimes  we  need  a  kind 
word  or  a  pat  on  the  head.  Acting  is  a  business,  honey. 
Can't  you  understand?  We  played  it  well  because  it's  a 
business  and  we  know  our  business.  If  you  can't  under 
stand  the  first  thing  about  my  profession  I  might  as  well 
give  it  up." 

"That's  one  thing  we  agree  on,  thank  Gcd." 

"Oh,  I'd  be  glad  to  quit  any  time.  I'm  worn  out. 
I  don't  like  this  play.  It  hasn't  a  new  idea  in  it.  I'm 
tired  of  it  already  and  I  dread  the  thought  of  going  on 
with  it  for  a  year — two  years,  maybe.  I  wish  I  could 
quit  to-night." 

295 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"You're  going  to." 

She  was  startled  by  the  quiet  conviction  of  his  tone. 
Again  she  sighed:  "If  I  only  could!" 

"I  mean  it,  Sheila,"  he  declared.  "This  is  your  last 
night  on  the  stage  or  your  last  night  as  my  wife." 

She  studied  him  narrowly.  He  really  meant  it!  He 
went  on: 

"Joking  or  no  joking,  you  were  in  another  man's  arms 
and  you  had  no  idea  when  you  were  coming  home.  We 
have  no  home.  I  have  no  wife.  It  can't  go  on.  You 
come  back  with  me  to-morrow  or  I  go  back  alone  for  good 
and  all." 

"But  Reben — "  she  interposed,  helpless  between  the 
millstones  of  her  two  destinies  as  woman  and  artist. 

"I'll  settle  with  Reben." 

She  hardly  pondered  the  decision.  Suddenly  it  was 
made  for  her.  She  looked  at  her  husband  and  felt  that 
she  belonged  to  him  first,  last,  and  forever.  She  was  at 
the  period  when  all  her  inheritances  and  all  nature  com 
manded  her  to  be  woman,  to  be  wife  to  her  man.  It  was 
good  to  have  him  decide  for  her. 

She  dropped  to  the  floor  again  and  breathed  a  little 
final,  comfortable,  "All  right." 

Bret  bent  over  and  caught  her  up  into  his  arms  with  a 
strength  that  assured  her  protection  against  all  other 
claimants  of  her,  and  he  kissed  her  with  a  contented 
certainty  that  he  had  never  known  before.  Then  he  set 
her  on  her  feet  and  said  with  a  noble  authority: 

"  Hurry  and  get  out  of  those  things  and  into  your  own." 

She  laughed  at  his  magistral  tone,  and  her  last  act  of 
independence  was  to  put  him  out  of  the  actress's  room 
and  call  Pennock  to  her  aid.  Bret  stood  guard  in  the 
corridor.  If  he  had  had  any  qualms  of  conscience  they 
would  have  been  eased  by  the  sound  of  Sheila's  cheerful 
voice  as  she  made  old  Pennock  bestir  herself. 

At  length  Sheila  emerged  with  no  trace  of  the  actress 
about  her,  just  a  neat  little,  tight  little  armful  of  wife. 

296 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

As  they  were  about  to  turn  out  at  the  stage  door  they 
saw  Reben  lingering  in  the  wings.  He  beckoned  to  Sheila 
and  called  her  by  name.  She  moved  toward  him,  not 
because  he  was  her  boss,  but  because  he  did  not  know 
that  he  was  not.  She  rejoiced  to  feel  that  she  had  changed 
masters.  Her  husband,  already  the  protector  and  cham 
pion,  motioned  her  back  and  went  to  Reben  in  her  stead. 

"I  wanted  Miss  Kemble,"  Reben  said,  very  coldly. 

To  which  Bret  retorted,  calmly,  "Mrs.  Winfield  has 
decided  to  resign  from  your  company." 

Reben  had  fought  himself  to  a  state  of  self-control. 
He  had  resolved  to  leave  Sheila  and  Bret  to  settle  their 
own  feud.  He  would  observe  a  strict  neutrality.  His 
business  was  to  keep  the  company  together  and  at  work. 
The  word  "resign"  alarmed  him  anew. 

' '  Resign !' '  he  gasped.     ' '  When  ?" 

"To-night." 

"Nonsense!     She  plays  to-morrow." 

"She  cannot  play  to-morrow." 

"She  is  ill?  I  don't  wonder,  after  such  scenes.  Her 
understudy  might  get  through  to-morrow  night,  but 
after  that  she  must  appear." 

"She  cannot  appear  again." 

"My  dear  fellow,  I  have  a  contract." 

J<I  am  breaking  the  contract." 

"Your  name  is  not  on  the  contract." 

"It  is  on  a  contract  of  marriage." 

"So  you  told  me.     She  plays,  just  the  same." 

"She  does  not  play." 

"I  will  make  her  play." 

"How?" 

"I —  She —  You —  Sheila,  you  can't  put  such  a 
trick  on  me." 

Sheila  crept  forward  to  interpose  again:  "I'm  awfully 
sorry,  Mr.  Reben.  But  my  husband — " 

"Have  I  treated  you  badly?     Have  I  neglected  any 
thing?    Have  I  done  you  any  injury?" 
20  297 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"No,  no.  I  have  no  fault  to  find  with  you,  Mr.  Reben. 
But  my  husband — " 

"Before  you  married  him — before  you  met  him,  you 
promised  me — " 

"I  know.  I'm  terribly  sorry,  but  my  duty  to  my  hus 
band  is  my  highest  duty.  Please  forgive  me,  but  I  can't 
play  any  more." 

"You  shall  play.  I  have  invested  a  fortune  in  your 
future.  I  have  made  you  a  success.  You  can't  desert  me 
and  the  company  now.  You  can't!  You  sha'n't,  by — 

Sheila  shook  her  head.  She  was  done  with  the  stage. 
Reben  was  throttled  with  his  own  anger.  He  turned 
again  on  Winfield  and  shook  a  jeweled  fist  under  his  nose: 

"This  is  your  infernal  meddling.  You  get  out  of  here 
and  never  come  near  again." 

Winfield  pressed  Reben's  fist  down  with  a  quiet  strength. 
"We're  not  going  to." 

"You,  I  mean;  not  Sheila.  Sheila  belongs  to  me. 
She  is  my  star.  I  made  her.  I  need  her.  She  means  a 
fortune  to  me." 

"How  much  of  a  fortune  does  she  mean  to  you?" 

"I  will  clear  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  from  this 
piece  at  least;  a  hundred  thousand  dollars!  You  think 
I  will  let  you  rob  me  of  that?" 

"I'm  not  going  to.  I  will  pay  you  that  much  to  cancel 
her  contract." 

Reben  gasped  in  his  face.  "  You — you  will  pay  me  a — 
hun — dred — thou — sand — dol — lars  ?" 

"Yes." 

"When?" 

"I  haven't  that  much  cash  in  the  bank." 

"Ha,  ha!     I  guess  not!" 

"But  I  will  pay  it  to  you  long  before  Sheila  could  earn 
it  for  you." 

"I  will  believe  that  when  I  see  it." 

"  I  haven't  my  check-book  with  me.  I  will  send  you  a 
check  for  ten  thousand  on  account  to-morrow  morning." 

298 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Reben  laughed  wildly  at  him.  Bret  took  out  his  card- 
case.  There  was  a  smaii  gold  pencil  on  his  key-chain. 
He  wrote  a  few  words  and  handed  the  card  to  Reben : 


I  0  U  $100,000 
MR.  BRET  WINFIELD 

Bret  Winfield 


Reben  tossed  his  mane  in  scorn. 

Bret  answered:  "It  is  a  debt  of  honor.  I'm  able  to 
pay  it  and  I  will." 

Reben  stared  up  into  the  man's  cold  eyes,  looked  down 
at  the  card,  tightened  his  mouth,  put  the  card  into  his 
pocketbook,  and  snarled: 

"Honor!    We'll  see.     Now  get  out — both  of  you!" 

Winfield  accepted  the  dismissal  with  a  smile  of  pride, 
and,  turning,  took  Sheila's  arm  and  led  her  away. 

"Oh,  Bret!  Bret !"  she  moaned. 

"Don't  you  worry,  honey.  You're  worth  it,"  he 
laughed. 

"I  wonder!"  she  sighed. 

The  next  morning  after  breakfast  Bret  sat  down  to 
write  the  ten-thousand-dollar  check.  "  It  makes  an  awful 
hole  in  my  back  account,"  he  said,  "but  it  heals  a  bigger 
one  in  my  heart." 

Just  then  a  note  was  brought  to  the  door.  When  he 
opened  it  the  "I  O  U"  torn  into  small  bits  fell  into  his  hands 
from  a  sheet  of  letter-paper  containing  these  words: 

MY  DEAR  MR.  WINFIELD, — Please  find  inclosed  a  little 
wedding-present  for  your  charming  bride.  One  of  the  unavoid 
able  hazards  of  the  manager's  life  is  the  fatal  curiosity  of  actresses 
concerning  the  experiment  of  marriage.  Please  tell  Miss  Kemble 
— I  should  say  Mrs.  Winfield — that  no  fear  of  inconveniencing 

299 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

me  must  disturb  her  honeymoon.  Miss  Dulcie  Ormerod  will 
step  into  her  vacant  shoes  and  fill  them  nicely.  I  cannot  return 
her  contract,  as  it  is  in  my  safe  in  New  York.  I  will  leave  it 
there  until  she  feels  that  her  vacation  is  over,  when  I  shall  be 
glad  to  renew  it.  The  clever  little  lady  insisted  on  cutting  out 
the  two  weeks'  clause  in  her  contract  with  me — I  wonder  if 
she  left  it  in  yours. 

With  all  felicitation,  I  am,  dear  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Winfield, 

Faithfully  yours, 

HENRY  REBEN. 
BRET  WINFIELD,  Esq. 

Sheila  read  the  ironic  words  across  Bret's  arm.  She 
clung  to  it  as  to  a  spar  of  rescue  and  laughed.  "I'll  never 
go  back." 

And  this  time  it  was  Bret  who  sighed,  "I  wonder." 


CHAPTER  XLII 

HP  HE  impromptu  epilogue  to  the  play  and  the  aban- 
1     donment  of  the  theater  by  the  young  star  had  oc 
curred  too  late  to  reach  the  next  morning's  papers. 

The  evening  sheets  were  sure  to  make  a  spread.  The 
actors  were  bound  to  gossip,  and  the  stage-hands.  Some 
body  would  tell  some  reporter  and  gain  a  little  credit 
or  a  little  excitement.  Therefore  almost  everybody 
would  join  in  the  race  for  publication. 

Reben  understood  this,  and  he  held  a  council  of  war 
with  Starr  Coleman  as  to  the  best  form  of  presentation. 
He  had  a  natural  and  not  unjustified  desire  to  have  the 
story  do  the  least  possible  harm  to  his  play.  He  col 
laborated  with  his  press  agent  for  hours  over  the  cam 
paign,  and  they  decided  upon  a  formal  telegram  to  be 
given  to  the  Associated  Press  and  the  other  bureaus. 
They  would  flash  it  to  all  the  crannies  of  the  continent. 
It  was  too  bad  that  such  easy  publicity  should  be  wasted 
on  an  expiring  instead  of  a  rising  star. 

For  the  Chicago  papers  Reben  decided  upon  an  inter 
view  which  he  would  give  with  seeming  reluctance  at  the 
solicitation  of  Coleman  on  behalf  of  the  reporters. 

The  loss  of  Sheila  was  a  serious  blow.  The  problem 
was  whether  or  not  "Hamlet"  could  succeed  with  Hamlet 
omitted;  or,  rather,  if  "As  You  Like  It"  would  prosper 
without  Rosalind. 

Reben  had  been  tempted  to  close  the  theater  at  once; 
then  get  Winfield's  money  out  of  him  if  he  had  to  levy 
on  his  father's  business,  which,  the  manager  had  learned, 
was  big  and  solvent. 

301 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

But  his  egotism  revolted  at  such  a  procedure,  and  in  a 
fine  burst  of  pride  he  had  written  the  letter  to  Bret 
and,  tearing  the  "I  O  U"  to  shreds,  sealed  it  in.  At  the 
same  time  he  resolved  not  to  give  up  the  ship.  It  was 
never  easy  to  tell  who  made  the  success  of  a  play.  He 
had  known  road  companies  to  take  in  more  money  with 
out  a  famous  star  than  with  one. 

He  rounded  up  Batterson,  got  him  out  of  bed,  and 
sent  for  Dulcie  Ormerod  to  meet  him  in  the  deserted, 
hotel  parlor  and  begin  rehearsals  at  once.  She  could  make 
up  her  sleep  later  in  the  day  or  next. week.  Then  he 
went  to  his  own  bed. 

Sometimes  luck  conspires  with  the  brave.  The  first 
stage-hand  who  met  the  first  early  morning  reporter  and 
sold  him  the  story  for  a  drink  had  the  usual  hazy  idea 
one  brings  away  from  a  fist-battle.  According  to  him 
Winfield  had  come  back  on  the  stage  drunk  and  started 
a  row  by  striking  at  Mr.  Eldon. 

Eldon  knocked  Winfield  backward  into  the  arms  of 
Batterson  and  McNish,  and  would  have  finished  him  off 
if  Sheila  had  not  sheltered  him.  Thereupon  Eldon  ordered 
Winfield  out  of  the  theater,  and  he  retreated  under  the 
protection  of  his  wife,  for  it  seemed  that  the  poor  girl 
had  been  deluded  into  marrying  the  hound. 

The  reporter  was  overjoyed  at  this  glorious  find.  He 
hunted  up  Sheila  and  Winfield  first.  Sheila  answered  the 
telephone,  and  at  Bret's  advice  refused  to  see  or  be  seen. 
She  gave  the  reporter  the  message  that  her  husband  had 
absolutely  nothing  to  say. 

It  is  a  safe  statement  at  times,  but  just  now  it  con 
firmed  the  reporter  in  a  beautiful  theory  that  Eldon 
had  beaten  Winfield  up  so  badly  that  he  was  in  no  condi 
tion  to  be  seen. 

The  reporter  found  Batterson  next  and  told  him  his 
suspicions.  Batterson,  surly  with  wrecked  slumber,  was 
pleased  to  confirm  the  theory  and  make  a  few  additions. 
He  owed  Winfield  no  courtesies. 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

When  Starr  Coleman  and  Reben  were  found  they 
needed  no  prompting  to  set  that  snowball  rolling  and  to 
play  up  Eldon's  heroism.  Coleman  added  the  excellent 
thought  that  Winfield's  motive  was  one  of  professional 
jealousy  because  Eldon  had  run  away  with  the  play  and 
the  star's  laurels  were  threatened.  For  that  reason  she 
had  basely  deserted  the  ship;  but  the  ship  would  go  on. 
Mr.  Reben,  in  fact,  had  felt  that  Miss  Kemble  was  an 
unfortunate  selection  for  the  play  and  had  already  de 
cided  to  substitute  his  wonderful  discovery,  the  brilliant, 
beautiful  Dulcie  Ormerod — photographs  herewith. 

That  was  the  story  that  Bret  and  Sheila  read  when  it 
occurred  to  them  to  send  down  for  an  evening  paper. 
Bret  was  desperate  with  rage — rage  at  Eldon,  at  Reben, 
at  the  entire  press,  and  the  whole  world.  But  he  remem 
bered  that  his  father,  who  had  been  a  politician,  had 
used  as  his  motto:  "Don't  fight  to-day's  paper  till  next 
week.  You  can't  whip  a  cyclone.  Take  to  the  cellar 
and  it  will  soon  blow  over." 

Sheila  was  frantic  with  remorses  of  every  variety.  She 
blamed  Eldon  for  it  all.  She  did  not  absolve  him  even 
when  a  little  note  arrived  from  him: 

DEAR  MRS.  WINFIELD, — After  the  exciting  events  of  last  night 
I  overslept  this  morning.  I  have  but  this  minute  seen  the 
outrageous  stories  in  the  newspapers.  I  beg  you  to  believe  that 
I  had  no  part  in  them  and  that  I  shall  do  what  I  can  to  deny  the 
ridiculous  r61e  they  put  upon  me. 

Yours  faithfully, 

FLOYD  ELDON. 

Eldon's  denials  were  as  welcome  as  denials  of  picturesque 
newspaper  stories  always  are.  They  were  suppressed 
or  set  in  small  type,  with  statements  that  Mr.  Eldon 
very  charmingly  and  chivalrously  and  with  his  character 
istic  modesty  attempted  to  minimize  his  share  in  a  most 
unpleasant  matter. 

Bret  was  so  annoyed  by  a  chance  encounter  with  a 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

group  of  cross-examining  reporters,  and  found  himself 
so  hampered  by  his  inability  to  explain  his  own  anger  at 
Eldon  and  the  theater  without  implying  gross  suspicion 
of  his  wife's  behavior,  that  he  broke  away,  returned  to 
the  policy  of  silence  that  he  ought  not  to  have  left,  and, 
gathering  Sheila  up,  fled  with  her  to  his  own  home. 

The  play  profited  by  the  advertisement,  and  Dulcie 
Ormerod  slid  into  the  established  rdle  like  a  hand  going 
into  a  glove  several  sizes  too  large.  Eldon  was  doubly  a 
hero  now,  and  Reben  went  back  to  New  York  with 
triumph  perched  on  his  cigar. 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

A  HONEYMOON  is  like  a  blue  lagoon  divinely  beau 
tiful,  with  a  mimicry  of  all  heaven  in  its  deeps;  blind 
ing  sweet  in  the  sun,  and  almost  intolerably  comfortable 
in  the  moon. 

But  by  and  by  the  atoll  that  circles  it  like  a  wedding- 
ring  proves  to  be  a  bit  narrow  and  interferes  with  the 
view  of  the  big  sea  pounding  at  its  outer  edges.  The 
calm  becomes  monotonous,  and  at  the  least  puff  of  wind 
the  boat  is  on  the  reefs.  They  are  coral  reefs,  but  they 
cut  like  knives  and  hurt  the  worse  for  being  jewelry. 

To  Bret  and  Sheila  the  newspaper  storm  over  her 
departure  from  the  theater,  her  elopement  from  success, 
was  like  the  surf  on  the  shut-out  sea. 

The  Winfield  influence  had  suppressed  most  of  the  news 
paper  comment  in  the  home  papers,  but  the  people  of 
Blithevale  read  the  metropolitan  journals,  and  Sheila's 
name  flared  through  those  for  many  days. 

When  the  news  element  had  been  exhausted  there  were 
crumbs  enough  left  for  several  symposiums  on  the  subject 
of  "Stage  Marriages,"  "Actresses  as  Wives,"  "Actresses 
as  Mothers,"  "The  Home  vs.  the  Theater,"  and  all  the 
twists  an  ingenious  press  can  give  to  a  whimsy  of  public 
interest. 

Bret  and  Sheila  suffered  woefully  from  the  appalling 
pandemonium  their  secret  wedding  had  raised,  and  Win- 
field  began  to  be  convinced  that  the  policy  of  the  mailed 
fist,  the  blow  and  the  word,  had  not  brought  him  dignity. 
But  it  had  brought  him  his  wife,  and  she  was  at  home; 
and  when  they  could  not  escape  the  articles  on  "Why 

305 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Actresses  Go  Back  to  the  Stage,"  she  laughed  at  the 
prophecies  that  she  would  return,  as  so  many  others  had 
done. 

"They  haven't  all  gone  back,"  she  smiled.  "And 
I  am  one  of  those  who  never  will,  for  I've  found  peace 
and  bliss  and  contentment.  I've  found  my  home." 

They  were  relieved  of  all  that  had  been  unusual  in  their 
marriage,  and  they  shared  and  inspired  the  usual  rap 
tures,  which  were  no  less  poignant  for  being  immemorially 
usual.  This  year's  June  was  the  most  beautiful  June  that 
ever  was,  while  it  was  the  newest  June. 

Their  honeymoon  was  usual  in  being  sublime.  It  was 
also  usual  in  running  into  frequent  shoals  and  reefs. 

The  first  reef  was  Bret's  mother.  Bret  had  always  been 
amazed  at  the  professional  jealousy  of  actors  and  their 
contests  for  the  largest  type  and  the  center  of  the  stage. 
Suddenly  he  was  himself  the  center  of  the  stage  and  his 
attention  was  the  large  type.  He  was  dismayed  to  behold 
with  what  immediate  instinct  his  mother  and  his  wife 
proceeded  to  take  mutual  umbrage  at  each  other's  interest 
in  him,  and  to  take  astonishing  pain  from  his  efforts  to 
divide  his  heart  into  equal  portions. 

Sheila  recognized  that  poor  Mrs.  Winfield  had  a  right 
to  her  son's  support  in  a  time  of  such  grief,  but  she  felt 
that  she  herself  had  a  right  to  some  sort  of  honeymoon. 
And  being  a  stranger  in  the  town  and  all,  she  had  especial 
claim  to  consideration. 

Sheila  told  Bret  one  day:  "Of  course,  honey,  your 
mother  is  a  perfect  dear  and  I  don't  wonder  you  love  her, 
but  she'd  like  to  poison  me —  Now  wait,  dearie.  Of  course 
I  don't  mean  just  that,  but — well,  she's  like  an  understudy. 
An  understudy  doesn't  exactly  want  the  star  to  break  her 
neck  or  anything,  but  if  a  train  ran  over  her  she'd  bear 
up  bravely." 

Another  reef  was  the  factory.  Of  course  Sheila  ex 
pected  her  husband  to  pay  the  proper  attention  to  his 
business  and  she  wanted  him  to  be  ambitious,  but  she  had 

306 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

not  anticipated  how  little  time  was  left  in  a  day  after  the 
necessary  office  hours,  meal  hours,  and  sleep  hours  were 
deducted. 

She  wrote  her  mother: 

Bret  is  an  ideal  husband  and  I'm  ideally  happy,  of  course, 
but  women  off  the  stage  are  terrible  loafers.  They  just  sit  in 
the  window  and  watch  the  procession  go  by. 

When  I  chucked  Reben  I  said,  "Thank  Heaven,  I  don't  have 
to  go  on  playing  that  same  old  part  for  two  or  three  years 
night  after  night,  matinee  after  matinee."  But  that's  nothing 
to  the  record  of  the  household  drama.  This  is  the  scene  plot 
of  my  daily  performance: 

SCENE:  Home  of  the  Winfields.    TIME:  Yesterday,  to-day,  and 

forever. 

ACT  I.     SCENE:    Dining-room.     TIME:    8  A.M.     Husband  and 
wife  at  breakfast.     Soliloquy  by  wife  while  hubby  reads 
paper  and  eats  eggs  and  says,  "Yes,  honey,"  at  intervals. 
Exit  husband.     CURTAIN. 
Five  hours  elapse. 

ACT  II.     SCENE:     Same    as    ACT    I.     Luncheon    on    table. 
Husband  enters  hurriedly,  apologizes  for  coming  home  late 
and   dashing   away   early.     Tells   of   trouble   at   factory. 
Exit  hastily.     CURTAIN. 
Five  hours  elapse. 

ACT  III.  SCENE:  Same  as  ACT  II.  Dinner  on  table.  Hus 
band  discusses  trouble  at  factory.  Wife  tells  of  troubles 
with  servants.  Neither  understands  the  other.  CURTAIN. 
Two  hours  elapse. 

ACT  IV.  SCENE:  Living-room.  Husband  reads  evening 
papers;  wife  reads  stupid  magazines.  Business  of  making 
love.  Return  to  reading-matter.  Husband  falls  asleep  in 
chair.  CURTAIN. 

That's  the  scenario,  and  the  play  has  settled  down  for  an  in 
definite  run  at  this  house. 

Roger  and  Polly  read  the  letter  and  shook  their  heads 
over  it.  Roger  sighed. 

"Plow  long  do  you  think  it's  really  booked  for,  Polly?" 
"Knowing  Sheila — "  Polly  began,  then  shook  her  head. 
"Well,  really  I  don't  know.     There  are  so  many  Sheilas, 
and  I  haven't  met  the  last  three  or  four  of  them." 

307 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

For  many  months  Sheila  was  royally  entertained  by 
what  she  called  "the  merry  villagers."  She  was  the 
audience  and  they  the  spectacle.  She  took  a  childish 
delight  in  mimicking  odd  types,  to  Bret's  amusement 
and  his  mother's  distress.  She  took  a  daughter-in-law's 
delight  in  shocking  her  mother-in-law  by  pretending  to 
be  shocked  at  the  Blithevale  vices. 

Hitherto  Sheila  had  gone  to  church  regularly  next 
Sunday,  but  seldom  this.  In  Blithevale  Mrs.  Winfield 
compelled  her  to  attend  constantly.  Sheila  took  revenge 
by  quoting  all  the  preacher  said  about  the  wickedness  of 
his  parishioners. 

When  she  heard  of  a  divorce  or  a  family  wreck  she  would 
exclaim,  "Why,  I  thought  that  only  actors  and  actresses 
were  tied  loose!" 

When  she  heard  of  one  of  those  hideous  scandals  that 
all  communities  endure  now  and  then  as  a  sort  of  measles 
she  would  make  a  face  of  horror:  "Why,  I've  always  read 
that  village  life  was  ninety-nine  and  forty-four  one- 
hundredths  pure." 

When  Bret  would  fume  at  the  petty  practices  of  busi 
ness  rivals,  the  necessity  for  crushing  down  competition 
and  infringement,  the  importance  of  keeping  the  name  at 
the  top  of  the  list,  Sheila  would  smile,  "And  do  manu 
facturers  have  professional  jealousy,  too?" 

She  soon  realized,  however,  that  her  comedy  was  not 
getting  across  the  footlights  as  she  meant  it. 

Seen  through  the  eyes  of  one  who  had  been  used  to  hard 
work,  far  travel,  and  high  salary,  the  business  of  being  a  wife 
as  the  average  woman  conducted  it  was  a  farce  to  Sheila. 

That  the  average  wife  was  truly  a  helpmeet  appeared  to 
her  merely  a  graceful  gallantry  of  the  husbands.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  as  far  as  she  could  see,  the  only  help 
most  of  the  men  got  from  their  wives  was  the  help  of  the 
spur  and  the  lash.  The  women's  extravagances  and  dis 
content  compelled  the  husbands  to  double  energy  and 
increased  achievement. 

308 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Thus,  while  the  village  was  watching  with  impatient 
suspicion  the  behavior  of  this  curious  actress-creature  who 
had  settled  there,  the  actress-creature  was  learning  the 
uglier  truths  about  that  most  persistently  flattered  of 
institutions,  the  American  village. 

But  after  the  failure  of  her  first  satires  Sheila  resolved 
to  stop  being  "catty,"  and  to  dwell  upon  the  sweeter  and 
more  wholesome  elements  of  life  in  Blithevale.  She 
ceased  to  defend  the  theater  by  aspersing  the  town. 

She  said  never  a  word,  however,  of  any  longing  for  a 
return  to  the  stage.  Now  and  then  an  exclamation  of 
interest  over  a  bit  of  theatrical  news  escaped  her  when 
she  read  the  New  York  paper  that  had  been  coming  to  the 
Winfield  home  for  years.  It  arrived  after  Bret  left  for 
the  office,  and  he  usually  glanced  at  it  during  his  luncheon. 
One  noon  Bret's  eye  was  caught  by  head-lines  on  an  inner 
page  devoted  largely  to  dramatic  news.  The  "triumph" 
of  "The  Woman  Pays"  was  announced;  it  had  been  pro 
duced  in  New  York  the  night  before.  In  spite  of  the 
handicap  of  its  Chicago  success  it  had  conquered  Broad 
way.  As  sometimes  happens,  it  found  the  Manhattanites 
even  more  enthusiastic  than  the  Westerners. 

Bret  noted  with  a  kind  of  resentment  that  Sheila  was 
not  mentioned  as  the  creator  of  the  leading  r61e.  He 
hated  to  see  that  Dulcie  Ormerod  was  taken  seriously  by 
the  big  critics.  He  winced  to  read  that  Floyd  Eldon  was 
a  great  find,  a  future  star  of  the  first  magnitude. 

Winfield  had  once  been  wretched  for  fear  that  his  kid 
napping  of  Sheila  had  ruined  the  chances  of  the  play.  Yet 
it  was  not  entirely  comfortable  to  see  that  the  play  pros 
pered  so  hugely  without  her.  He  had  not  been  entirely 
glad  that  Reben  had  returned  his  "  I  O  U  " ;  and  he  was  not 
entirely  glad  that  Reben  stood  to  make  a  greater  profit 
than  he  had  estimated  at  first  in  spite  of  Sheila.  It  was 
a  peculiarly  galling  humiliation. 

Bret  would  have  concealed  the  paper  from  Sheila,  but 
he  knew  that  she  had  read  it  before  he  came  home  to 

3°9 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

luncheon.  He  had  wondered  what  made  her  so  distraught. 
Now  that  he  knew,  he  said  nothing,  but  he  could  see  the 
torment  in  the  back  of  her  smiling  eyes,  the  labored  effort 
to  be  casual  and  inconsequential.  That  Mona  Lisa 
enigma  haunted  him  at  his  office,  and  he  resolved  to  take 
her  for  a  spin  in  the  car.  She  would  be  having  a  hard 
day,  for  ambitious  fevers  have  their  crises  and  relapses, 
too.  Bret  wanted  to  help  his  wife  over  this  bitter  hour. 

When  he  came  in  unexpectedly  he  found  her  lying 
asleep  on  the  big  divan  in  the  living-room.  The  crumpled 
newspaper  lay  on  the  floor  at  her  side.  She  had  been 
reading  it  again.  Her  lashes  were  wet  with  recent  tears, 
yet  she  was  smiling  in  her  sleep.  As  he  bent  to  kiss  her 
her  lips  moved.  He  paused,  an  eavesdropper  on  her 
very  dreams.  And  he  made  out  the  muffled,  disjointed 
words : 

"What  can  I  say  but,  thank  you — on  behalf  of  the  com 
pany — your  applause — I  thank  you." 

She  was  taking  a  curtain  call! 

Bret  tiptoed  away,  wounded  by  her  and  for  her.  He 
struggled  for  self-control  a  moment,  telling  himself  that 
he  was  a  fool  to  blame  her  for  her  dreams.  He  knocked 
loudly  on  the  door  and  called  to  her.  She  woke  with  a 
start,  stared,  realized  where  she  was  and  who  he  was, 
and  smiled  upon  him  lovingly.  She  explained  that  she 
had  been  asleep  and  "dreaming  foolish  dreams." 

But  when  he  asked  what  they  were  she  shrugged  her 
shoulders  and  laughed,  "I  forget." 

Afterward  Bret  read  that  "The  Woman  Pays"  had 
settled  down  for  a  long  run  on  Broadway.  Sheila  settled 
down  also  and  attended  to  her  knitting.  And  knitting 
became  a  more  and  more  important  office.  She  was  more 
and  more  content  to  sit  in  an  easy-chair  and  wait. 

Bret  paused  one  day  to  pick  up  some  of  the  curious  doll- 
clothes. 

'I  knat  'em  myself,"  said  Sheila,  with  boundless  pride. 
310 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Bret,  the  business  man,  pondered  the  manufacturing 
cost. 

"You  could  buy  the  whole  lot  for  ten  dollars,"  he  said. 
"And  they've  taken  you  a  month  to  finish  them.  You're 
not  charging  as  much  for  your  time  as  you  did." 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  could  buy  'em  for  less,  and  it  would 
be  still  less  trouble  to  adopt  a  child  to  wear  'em;  but  it 
wouldn't  be  quite  the  same,  would  it?" 

He  agreed  that  it  would  not. 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

'~PHE  most  thrilling  first  night  of  Sheila's  life  was  her 
I  debut  as  a  mother.  The  doctor  and  the  stork  had 
a  nip-and-tuck  race.  The  young  gentleman  weighed 
more  than  ten  pounds. 

According  to  all  the  formulas  of  tradition,  this  epochal 
event  should  have  made  a  different  woman  of  Sheila. 
The  child  should  have  filled  her  life.  According  to  actual 
history,  Sheila  was  still  Sheila,  and  her  son,  while  he 
brought  great  joys  and  great  anxieties,  rather  added  new 
ambitions  than  satisfied  the  old. 

Bret  senior  did  not  change  his  business  interests  or  give 
up  his  office  hours  because  of  the  child.  Indeed,  he  was 
spurred  on  to  greater  effort  that  he  might  leave  his  heir 
a  larger  fortune. 

The  trained  nurse,  who  received  twenty-five  dollars 
a  week,  and  the  regular  nurse,  who  received  twenty-five 
dollars  a  month,  knew  infinitely  more  about  babies  than 
Sheila. 

The  elder  Mrs.  Winfield,  with  the  best  intention  and  the 
worst  tact,  thought  to  make  Sheila  happy  by  telling  her 
how  happy  she  ought  to  be.  This  is  an  ancient  practice 
that  has  never  been  discarded,  though  it  has  never  yet 
succeeded. 

The  elder  Mrs.  Winfield  said,  "It's  a  splendid  thing  for 
baby  that  you've  given  up  the  stage." 

Sheila  felt  an  implied  attack  on  her  own  family,  and 
she  bristled  gently:  "It's  fine  for  me,  but  I  don't  think 
the  baby  would  notice  the  difference  if  I  acted  every 
night.  My  mother  didn't  leave  the  stage,  and  her  mother 

312 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

and  my  father's  mother  were  hard-working  actresses. 
And  their  children  certainly  prospered.  Besides,  if  I 
were  out  of  the  way,  the  baby  would  have  the  advantage 
of  its  grandmother  uninterrupted." 

The  new  grandmother  accepted  the  last  statement  as 
an  obvious  truth  and  attacked  the  first.  "You're  still 
thinking  of  going  back,  then?" 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Sheila.  " I'll  never  act  again.  I  was 
just  saying  that  it  wouldn't  harm  the  baby  if  I  did. 
And,"  she  added,  meekly,  "it  might  be  the  making  of 
him  to  have  me  out  of  the  way." 

She  said  this  with  honest  deprecation.  She  was  trou 
bled  to  find  that  she  had  not  become  one  of  those  mere 
mothers  that  are  so  universal  in  books.  She  was  horrified 
to  discover  that  at  times  the  baby  lost  its  novelty,  that 
its  tantrums  tried  her  nerves.  She  did  not  know  enough 
to  know  that  this  was  true  of  all  mothers.  She  felt 
ashamed  and  afraid  of  herself.  She  did  not  return  to  her 
normal  glow  of  health  so  soon  as  she  should  have  done. 
She  kept  thin  and  wan.  Cheerfulness  was  not  in  her, 
save  when  she  played  it  like  a  r61e. 

At  length  the  doctor  recommended  a  change  of  scene. 
Since  it  was  not  quiet  that  she  needed,  he  suggested 
diversion,  a  trip  to  the  city.  The  three  Winfields  made 
the  journey — father,  mother,  and  baby,  not  to  mention 
the  nurse. 

The  quick  pulse  and  exultant  life  of  New  York  reacted 
upon  Sheila.  She  found  the  theaters  a  swift  tonic,  and, 
since  "The  Woman  Pays"  was  now  on  the  road  after 
a  long  season  on  Broadway,  there  was  no  danger  of 
choosing  the  wrong  theater.  She  and  Bret  reveled  in 
the  plays  with  the  ingenuous  gaiety  of  farmers  in  town. 

At  this  time,  also,  a  monster  "all-star"  benefit  was  be 
ing  extensively  advertised.  A  great  fire  had  destroyed 
a  large  part  of  one  of  our  highly  inflammable  American 
cities,  leaving  thousands  of  people  in  such  distress  that 
21  313 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

public  charity  was  invoked.  The  actors,  as  usual  the  most 
prompt  of  all  classes  to  respond  to  any  call  upon  their 
generosity,  organized  a  huge  performance  to  be  given  at 
the  Metropolitan  Opera  House. 

Players,  managers,  scene-painters,  and  scene-shifters 
were  emulous  in  the  service.  Stars  offered  to  scintillate 
in  insignificant  roles.  A  program  lasting  from  one  o'clock 
to  six  was  speedily  concocted.  The  Opera  House  was 
not  large  enough  for  the  demand.  Boxes  were  sold  by 
eminent  auctioneers  at  astonishing  premiums. 

Bret  took  it  into  his  head  to  assist.  He  paid  two 
hundred  dollars  for  a  box. 

Sheila  left  the  baby  with  the  nurse,  put  on  a  brand- 
new  Paris  frock,  and  gulped  an  early  luncheon  that  she 
might  not  miss  a  line.  Bret  saw  with  mingled  relief  and 
dismay  that  she  was  as  eager  as  a  child  going  to  her 
first  party. 

They  read  with  awe  the  name-plate  on  the  door  of  the 
box  they  had  rented;  it  was  that  of  one  of  the  war  lords 
of  American  finance. 

The  Opera  House  was  seething  with  people.  Bret  and 
Sheila  wedged  their  way  through  a  dense  skirmish-line 
of  prominent  actresses  selling  programs  printed  free  with 
illustrations  designed  free.  Bret  had  bought  five  for  ten 
dollars  before  Sheila  restrained  him. 

The  bill  was  a  reckless  hash ;  everything  was  in  it  from 
a  morsel  of  tragedy  to  a  bit  of  juggling  and  repartee. 
The  vast  planes  of  the  auditorium  were  crowded  with 
people.  The  dean  of  the  dramatists  announced  from  the 
stage  that  the  receipts  were  over  fifteen  thousand  dollars 
and  that  a  program  autographed  by  every  participant 
would  be  auctioned  later. 

Bret,  in  a  mood  of  extravagance,  determined  to  buy 
it  for  Sheila.  It  would  show  that  he  was  not  ashamed 
of  her  past  or  afraid  of  her  future.  During  an  inter 
mission  they  promenaded  the  corridors  thronged  with 
notables.  Sheila  bowed  her  head  almost  off  and  was 

3H 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

greeted  with  an  effusiveness  usually  reserved  for  long- 
lost  children. 

At  length  Sheila  heard  her  name  called,  felt  a  hand 
plucking  at  her  elbow.  She  turned  and  faced  Dulcie 
Ormerod,  who  gushed  like  a  faucet: 

"How  are  you,  Sheila  dear?  I  haven't  seen  you  for 
ages.  How  well  you  look!  Isn't  this  wonderful?  Our 
play  is  in  Trenton  this  week,  so  Mr.  Eldon  and  I  just 
ran  over  to  take  in  this  show.  And  is  this  your  husband  ? 
Mayn't  I  meet  him?" 

Sheila  made  the  presentation  helplessly,  and  Dulcie 
gushed  on : 

"I've  been  dying  to  see  you.  You  remember  Mr. 
Eldon,  don't  you?  Where  is  that  man?  Oh,  Floydie 
dear,  here's  an  old  friend  of  yours." 

To  Sheila's  horror  and  Bret's  she  turned  and  seized  the 
elbow  of  a  man  whose  back  was  turned  and  whose  exist 
ence  they  had  not  noted  in  the  thick  crowd.  Dulcie 
dragged  Eldon  about  and  swung  him  into  his  place  at 
her  side.  He  confronted  Sheila  and  Bret  as  by  miracle. 


CHAPTER  XLV 

DULCIE  had  plotted  it  all  for  her  own  personal  en 
tertainment.  Like  a  mad  King  of  Bavaria  she  com 
manded  the  actors  before  her.  She  had  caught  sight 
of  Sheila,  and  she  knew  who  Bret  was  from  the  descrip 
tions  of  him.  She  had  a  grudge  against  Sheila  on  general 
principles  and  another  against  Eldon  for  not  going  mad 
over  her. 

Eldon  had  received  no  answer  to  the  note  he  sent 
Sheila  denying  his  part  in  the  newspaper  notoriety.  This 
had  rankled  in  his  heart.  Bret  still  believed  that  the  note 
was  a  lie  and  an  effort  to  keep  a  hook  on  Sheila.  He  loved 
Eldon  less  than  ever. 

There  was  a  longing  for  battle  in  both  the  big  hearts, 
and  each  would  have  been  glad  to  beat  the  other  down 
before  the  whole  crowd;  yet,  because  of  the  crowd, 
neither  could  strike. 

Sheila  guessed  at  once  that  Dulcie  had  planned  it; 
the  cat  was  overacting  her  role  of  surprise  and  regret,  as 
her  little  heart  thrilled  to  see  the  two  men  braced  in 
scarlet  confusion  and  Sheila  fluttering  between  them. 

Bret  endured  a  year  of  compressed  agony.  The  fool 
ishness  of  resuming  the  fight,  the  foolishness  of  not  resum 
ing  it,  the  inextricable  tangle  of  contradictory  duties 
and  impulses,  shattered  him.  Eldon  was  undergoing  the 
same  return  to  chaos. 

Yet  the  crowd  shoving  past  observed  nothing  and  did 
not  pause.  Bret  felt  Sheila's  hand  clasp  his  arm  both  to 
protect  and  to  be  protected,  and  she  urged  him  on. 
Then  he  managed  to  bow  with  formality  to  Eldon  and 

316 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

to  Dulcie.  And  so  the  great  rencounter  ended.  Dulcie 
alone  was  made  happy. 

Sheila  could  not  let  her  get  away  with  that  baby  stare. 
She  smiled  with  pretended  amusement  and  said,  "Thank 
you  ever  so  much,  Miss  Ormerod." 

"Thank  me  for  what?"  gasped  Dulcie.  But  Sheila  just 
twinkled  her  eyes  and  smiled  as  she  walked  on. 

Her  muscles  were  tired  for  half  an  hour  with  the  effort 
that  smile  cost  them. 

She  led  Bret  to  the  box,  and  he  was  shivering  with  the 
unsatisfied  emotions  of  a  fighter  for  the  battle  missed. 
Sheila  sank  into  a  chair  exhausted.  She  looked  about 
anxiously.  The  one  thing  needed  to  complete  the  situa 
tion  was  for  Eldon  to  walk  into  the  next  box  and  spend 
the  rest  of  the  afternoon.  They  were  spared  this  coinci 
dence. 

Bret  was  in  no  mood  to  remain,  but  she  kept  him  there. 
There  would  be  some  distraction  at  least  in  the  spectacle. 
If  they  went  back  to  their  hotel  they  would  have  only 
their  bitterness  to  chew  upon. 

The  auction  of  the  autographed  program  began.  There 
was  excited  bidding  from  all  parts  of  the  house.  But 
Bret  kept  silent.  The  program  brought  five  hundred 
dollars.  Bret  sneered  at  the  price  of  the  trash. 

A  musical  number  came  next.  The  orchestra  struck 
up  a  tune  that  would  have  set  gravestones  to  jigging. 
A  platoon  of  young  men  and  women  in  fantastic  bravery 
was  flung  across  the  stage,  singing  and  caracoling.  A 
famous  buffoon  waddled  to  the  footlights  and  beamed  like 
a  new  red  moon  with  its  chin  on  the  horizon.  He  was 
a  master  of  the  noble  art  of  tomfoolery  and  the  high-school 
of  horse-play.  He  probed  into  the  childhood  core  of 
every  heart,  and  no  grief  could  resist  him. 

Sheila  forgot  to  be  dismal  and  tried  to  look  solemn  for 
Bret's  sake  till  she  saw  that  he  was  overpowered,  too. 
He  began  to  grin,  to  sniff,  to  snort,  to  shake,  to  roll,  to 
guffaw.  He  laughed  till  tears  poured  down  his  cheeks. 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Sheila  laughed  in  a  dual  joy.  Everything  solemn,  ugly, 
hateful,  dignified,  had  become  foolish  and  childish;  and 
foolishness  had  become  the  one  great  wisdom  of  the  world. 

The  jester  always  wins  in  a  contest  with  the  doldrums 
because  philosophy  and  honor  present  riddles  that  cannot 
be  solved.  The  mystery  of  fun  is  just  as  insoluble,  but 
you  laugh  while  you  wait. 

Sheila  watched  the  thousands  of  people  rocking  and 
roaring  in  a  surf  of  delight,  and  she  watched  her  husband's 
soul  washed  clean  as  a  child's  heart.  It  was  a  noble 
profession,  this  clownery;  comedy  was  a  priesthood. 

Suddenly  she  saw  Bret's  eyes,  roving  the  hilarious 
multitude,  pause  and  harden.  She  followed  the  line  of 
his  gaze  across  the  space  and  saw  Eldon  in  a  box.  He  was 
laughing  like  a  huge  boy,  putting  back  his  head  and  baying 
the  moon  with  yelps  of  delight. 

She  watched  Bret  anxiously  and  saw  a  kind  of  forgive 
ness  softening  his  glare.  The  contagion  of  laughter  re- 
infected  him  and  he  laughed  harder  than  ever.  If  Eldon 
and  he  had  met  now  they  would  have  leaned  on  each 
other  to  laugh.  Music  and  buffoonery  and  grief  are  the 
universal  languages  that  everybody  understands. 

The  excerpt  from  the  comic  opera  was  succeeded  by  a 
little  play,  and  now  the  audience,  shaken  from  its  trenches 
by  the  artillery  of  laughter,  was  helpless  before  the  pathos. 
The  handkerchiefs  fluttered  like  little  white  flags  every 
where.  Sheila  saw  through  her  tears  that  Bret  was  swal 
lowing  hard;  a  tear  rolled  out  on  his  cheek,  and  he  was 
ashamed  to  brush  it  off.  It  splashed  on  his  finger  and 
startled  him.  He  looked  at  Sheila,  and  she  smiled  at  him 
with  ineffable  tenderness.  He  reached  out  and  took  her 
hand. 

In  that  mood  a  swift  understanding  could  have  been 
reached  with  Eldon.  Sheila  might  almost  have  forgiven 
Dulcie.  But  they  did  not  meet.  As  they  left  the  Opera 
House,  pleasantly  fatigued  with  the  exercise  of  every 
emotion,  she  felt  immensely  contented. 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

But  the  inevitable  reaction  followed.  In  this  wonderful 
work  of  the  stage,  why  was  she  idle  ?  Why  was  she  skulk 
ing  at  a  distance  when  her  training,  her  gifts,  her  am 
bitions,  called  her  to  do  her  share — to  make  people  glad 
and  sad  and  wise  in  sympathy  ?  Why  ?  Why  ?  Why  ? 

Two  years  later  there  was  another  baby — a  daughter, 
its  mother's  exquisite  miniature.  There  was  some  bad 
luck  for  Sheila  on  this  occasion,  and  the  physician  warned 
her  against  further  child-bearing  for  several  years.  She 
was  not  up  and  about  so  soon  as  before,  and  a  vague 
haze  of  melancholy  settled  about  her.  She  took  less 
interest  in  life. 

Her  laughter  was  not  half  so  frequent  or  so  clear; 
her  mischief  of  satire  was  gone.  She  smiled  on  Bret 
more  tenderly  than  ever,  but  it  was  tenderness  rather 
than  amusement.  She  had  nerve-storms  and  idled  about 
incessantly,  and  sometimes,  with  no  apparent  reason  or 
warning,  she  would  sigh  frantically,  leap  to  her  feet,  and 
pace  the  floor  or  the  porch  or  the  lawn  aimlessly.  When 
Bret  anxiously  asked  her  what  was  the  matter  she  would 
gaze  at  him  with  sorrowful  eyes  and  that  doleful  effort 
at  a  smile  and  say: 

"Nothing,  honey;  nothing  at  all." 

"But  you're  not  happy?" 

"Yes,  I  am,  dear.  Why  shouldn't  I  be?  I  have  every 
thing:  my  lover  for  my  husband,  my  children,  the  home 
— everything." 

"Everything,"  he  would  groan,  "except — " 

Then  she  would  put  her  hands  over  his  lips. 


EUGENE  VICKERY'S  sister  Dorothy  lived  in  Blithe- 
vale.  Having  lost  her  first  choice,  Bret  Winfield,  to 
the  scintillating  Sheila,  she  had  sensibly  accepted  the  de 
votion  of  his  rival,  Jim  Greeley,  who  was  now  a  junior 
partner  in  the  big  chemical  works  where  his  father  manu 
factured  drug  staples. 

Dorothy  had  never  forgotten  the  child  Sheila,  and  the 
two  women  resumed  their  acquaintance,  their  souls  little 
changed,  for  all  their  bodily  evolution.  They  were  still 
two  little  girls  playing  with  dolls.  They  were  still  utterly 
incomprehensible  to  each  other,  and  the  friendlier  for  that 
fact.  Dorothy  found  Sheila  a  trifle  insane,  but  immensely 
interesting,  and  Sheila  found  Dorothy  stodgily  Philistine, 
but  thoroughly  reliable,  as  normal  as  a  yardstick. 

Sheila  gave  to  her  two  children  all  the  adoration  of  a 
Madonna.  They  were  fascinating  toys  to  her;  though  at 
times  she  tired  of  them.  She  entertained  them  with  all 
her  talents,  wasting  on  the  infantile  private  audience 
graces  and  gifts  that  the  public  would  have  paid  thou 
sands  of  dollars  to  see. 

But  the  children  tired  of  their  expensive  toy,  too,  and 
preferred  a  rag  doll  or  a  little  tin  automobile  that  banged 
into  chair  legs  and  turned  over  at  the  edge  of  a  nig. 

Sheila  had  nursed  her  babies  with  an  ecstatic  pride. 
That  was  more  than  many  of  the  village  women  did. 
She  had  been  amazed  to  learn  how  many  bottle-fed  infants 
there  were  in  town.  Dorothy  herself  strongly  recom 
mended  one  or  two  foods  prepared  in  other  factories  than 
the  mother's  veins. 

320 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Dorothy  was  not  the  mother  one  meets  in  romance, 
but  very  much  like  the  mothers  next  door  and  across  the 
street — the  ones  the  doctors  know.  Her  children  drove 
her  into  storms  of  impatience  and  outbursts  of  temper. 
Now  and  then  she  had  to  get  away  from  them  for  half  a 
day  or  for  many  days.  If  she  could  not  escape  on  a 
shopping  prowl  to  some  other  city  she  would  send  them 
off  with  the  nurse  under  instructions  to  stay  as  long  as 
the  light  held  out.  She  welcomed  their  visits  to  relatives, 
she  encouraged  them  to  play  in  other  people's  yards. 
Other  mothers  with  headaches  urged  their  children  to 
play  in  one  another's  yards.  Nobody  knew  very  well 
where  they  played  or  at  what. 

Dorothy  was  a  violent  anti-suffragist  and  the  head  of 
the  local  league,  whose  motto  was  that  woman's  place  is 
in  the  home.  She  was  kept  away  from  home  a  good  deal 
in  the  furtherance  of  this  creed. 

Jim  Greeley,  the  normal  business  man,  spent  his  days 
at  his  desk,  his  evenings  at  his  club,  and  his  free  afternoons 
at  baseball  games.  Sometimes  he  added  a  little  variety 
to  the  peace  of  his  household  by  rolling  in  late,  lyrical  and 
incoherent. 

There  was  a  general  impression  about  town  that  he 
found  his  home  so  well  ordered  that  he  sought  a  recreative 
disorder  elsewhere.  From  the  first  meeting  with  him 
Sheila  disliked  the  way  he  looked  at  her.  His  eyes,  as  it 
were,  crossed  swords  with  hers  playfully  and  said,  "Do 
you  fence?"  She  found  the  compliments  he  murmured 
to  her  whenever  opportunities  arrived  uncomfortably 
unctuous.  But  there  was  nothing  that  she  could  openly 
resent. 

In  the  summer  all  the  wives  of  Blithevale  whose  hus 
bands  had  the  money  or  could  borrow  it  followed  the 
national  custom  and  went  to  the  seashore,  the  mountains, 
anywhere  to  get  away  from  home  and  husband ;  they  took 
the  children  with  them.  The  husbands  stuck  to  their 
jobs  and  made  occasional  dashes  to  their  families.  All 

321 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

signs  fail  in  hot  weather.  Even  the  churches  close  up. 
It  is  curious.  It  is  even  agreed  that  the  rule  about 
woman's  place  being  the  home  does  not  hold  in  hot 
weather. 

Dorothy  and  Sheila  and  their  youngsters  went  together 
one  summer  to  a  beach  with  nearly  as  much  boardwalk 
as  sand. 

Sheila  fretted  about  leaving  Bret  at  his  lonely  grind 
stone.  Dorothy  ridiculed  her  and  told  her  she  must 
get  over  her  honeymoon.  Dorothy  emphasized  the  im 
portance  of  the  sea  air  "for  the  children."  She  insisted 
that  a  mother's  first  duty  was  to  them.  Dorothy  paid 
little  enough  heed  to  her  own.  She  slept  late,  played 
cards,  watched  the  dancing,  and  changed  her  clothes 
with  a  chameleonic  frequence. 

Sheila  found  that  her  children,  like  the  rest,  preferred 
the  company  of  fellow-children  and  the  sea  to  any  other 
attractions.  Their  mothers  bored  them,  hampered  them, 
disgraced  them.  The  children  were  self-sufficient,  and 
better  so.  By  the  early  evening  they  had  played  them 
selves  into  a  comatose  condition  and  never  knew  who  took 
off  their  shoes  or  put  them  to  bed.  The  long  evenings  re 
mained  to  the  mothers  and  they  formed  porch-colonies, 
and  rocked  and  gabbled  and  stared  through  the  windows 
at  the  dancers. 

All  over  the  country  wives  were  enjoying  their  summer 
divorce.  Thousands,  millions  of  wives  deserted  their 
husbands  and  loafed  at  .great  cost,  and  it  was  all  right. 
But  for  an  actress  to  desert  her  husband  and  work — that 
was  all  wrong! 

Sheila  felt  that  her  husband  needed  her  more  than  her 
children  did.  She  pictured  him  distraught  with  longing 
for  her.  And  he  was — so  far  as  his  business  worries  gave 
him  time  for  sentimental  worries.  Sheila  left  the  children 
in  charge  of  the  governess  and  fled  back  to  Bret,  who  was 
enraptured  at  the  sight  of  her  and  had  an  enormous  amount 
of  factory  news  to  tell  her. 

322 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

The  men-folk  were  working  in  spite  of  the  summer,  and 
glad  to  be  working.  Bret  was  absorbed  in  his  business 
and  left  Sheila  all  day  to  sit  in  the  darkened  oven  of  the 
closed-up  house,  alone. 

She  contrasted  her  life  this  summer  with  the  summer 
she  had  played  in  the  stock  company  and  toiled  so  hard  to 
furnish  amusement  to  the  people  who  could  not  get  away  to 
seashores  or  mountains.  She  wondered  wherein  her  pres 
ent  indolence  was  an  improvement  over  her  period  of  toil. 

Still  she  was  glad  to  be  where  her  husband  could  find  her 
in  the  brief  entr'actes  of  his  commercial  drama.  She  had 
learned  enough  of  the  village  to  know  that  some  of  the 
men  whose  wives  left  them  for  the  summer  found  sub 
stitutes  among  the  village  belles  who  could  not  or  would 
not  leave  the  old  town. 

Sheila  had  heard  a  vast  amount  of  gossip  concerning 
Jim  Greeley.  She  had  not  repeated  any  of  it  to  Dorothy, 
of  course.  It  is  not  according  to  the  rules  of  the  game  and 
only  very  unpleasant  persons  do  it. 

Bret  knew  of  Jim's  repute,  but  did  not  forbid  Jim  his 
house.  The  village  was  full  of  such  scandals  and  it  was 
dangerous  to  begin  cutting  and  snubbing.  When  the  gos 
sips  whispered  they  made  a  terrifying  picture  of  village 
life,  yet  whenever  the  theater  was  mentioned  they  as 
sumed  an  air  of  Pharisaic  superiority. 

As  soon  as  Sheila  hurried  back  to  Blithevale  Jim 
Greeley  began  to  spoil  her  evening  communions  with  her 
husband  by  "just  dropping  round."  He  talked  till  Bret 
yawned  him  home. 

Still,  Sheila  was  glad  to  keep  Jim  interested  in  respect 
able  conversation,  for  Dorothy's  sake.  Sometimes  when 
Bret  had  to  go  back  to  his  office,  after  dinner,  and  Jim 
was  free,  he  just  dropped  round  just  the  same. 

On  these  occasions  he  seemed  to  be  laboring  under  some 
excitement,  full  of  audacious  impulses  restrained  by 
timidity.  Sheila  felt  a  nausea  at  her  suspicions;  she 
was  ashamed  of  them. 

323 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

One  cruelly  hot  evening  when  Bret  was  at  the  factory 
and  the  only  stir  of  air  eddied  in  a  vine-covered  corner  of 
the  big  piazza,  she  heard  Jim  come  up  the  walk.  She  did 
not  speak,  hoping  that  he  would  go  away.  But  he  called 
her  twice,  and  she  had  to  answer. 

He  invited  himself  to  sit  down,  and  after  violently 
casual  chatter  began  to  talk  of  his  loneliness  and  her 
kindliness.  She  was  his  one  salvation,  he  said. 

In  the  dusk  he  was  only  a  voice,  a  voice  of  longing  and 
appeal,  like  a  disembodied  Satan  in  a  mood  of  desire. 
In  the  gloom  she  felt  his  hand  brush  hers,  then  cling.  She 
drew  hers  away.  His  followed.  It  was  very  strange  that 
two  beings  should  conflict  so  tangibly,  audibly,  without 
any  other  evidence  of  existence. 

Suddenly  she  knew  that  he  was  standing  close  to  her, 
bending  over  her.  She  pushed  her  chair  back  and  rose. 
Unseen  arms  caught  her  to  a  ghost  as  invisible  and  in 
eluctable  as  the  wrestler  with  Jacob. 

Sheila  was  horrified.  She  blamed  herself  more  than 
Jim.  She  hated  herself  and  humanity.  "  Don't !  please !" 
she  pleaded  in  a  whisper.  She  dreaded  to  have  the 
servants  overhear  such  an  encounter.  Jim  misinterpreted 
her  motive,  clenched  her  tighter,  and  tried  to  find  her 
lips  with  his. 

"I  thought  you  were  Bret's  friend,"  she  protested  as 
she  hid  her  face  from  him. 

"I  like  Bret,"  Jim  whispered  in  a  frenzy,  "but  I  love 
you.  And  I  want  you  to  love  me.  You  do !  You  must ! 
Kiss  me!" 

She  tried  to  release  the  proved  weapon  of  her  elbow, 
but  he  held  her  by  the  wrists  till  she  wrenched  her  hand 
loose  with  great  pain  and  gave  him  her  knuckles  for  a  kiss. 

The  shock  to  his  self-esteem  was  more  than  to  his 
mouth,  and  he  let  her  go.  She  rebuked  him  in  guttural 
disgust : 

"I  suppose  you  think  that  because  I'm  an  actress 
you've  got  to  be  a  cad." 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

"No,  no,"  he  mumbled.  "It's  just  because  you  are 
you,  and  because  you  are  so  wonderful.  Forgive  me, 
won't  you?" 

Even  as  he  asked  for  forgiveness  his  hand  sought  her 
arm  again.  She  slipped  away  and  went  into  the  starlight 
and  sat  on  the  steps. 

"You'd  better  go  now,"  she  said,  "and  you'd  better  not 
come  back." 

"All  right,"  he  sighed. 

In  the  silence  she  heard  Bret's  car  far  away.  "Sit 
down,"  she  said,  "and  stay  awhile.  And  smoke!" 

She  had  foreseen  Bret  arriving  as  Jim  hurried  away. 
She  did  not  like  the  way  it  would  appear.  If  Bret's 
suspicions  were  aroused  he  could  not  but  look  uneasily 
on  her,  and  once  he  suspected  her  she  felt  that  she  would 
never  forgive  him.  And  it  was  altogether  odious,  too,  to 
be  included  in  the  list  of  women  whose  names  were  re 
membered  when  Jim  Greeley's  was  mentioned. 

And  so  she  conspired  with  a  knave  by  lies  and  con 
cealments  to  keep  peace  in  her  husband's  home.  Jim 
lighted  a  cigar  and  dropped  down  on  the  steps,  puffing 
with  ostentation. 

Sheila  looked  out  on  the  innocent  seeming  of  the  vil 
lage  and  the  gentle  benignity  of  the  stars,  and  hated  to 
think  how  much  evil  could  cloak  itself  and  prosper 
in  these  deep  shadows  and  soft  lights  and  peaceful 
hours. 

The  car  bustled  to  the  curb,  stopped  while  Bret  got 
out.  Then  the  chauffeur  shot  away  with  it  to  the  garage. 
Bret  came  drowsily  up  the  walk,  kissed  his  wife,  gripped 
the  hand  of  his  friend,  and  sat  down. 

Jim  asked  how  business  was,  and  they  talked  shop  with 
zest  while  Sheila  sat  in  utter  solitude,  watching  the  village 
Lothario  play  the  r61e  of  honest  Horatio. 

Her  husband  had  spent  the  day  and  half  the  evening 
at  his  business,  and  yet  it  interested  him  more  than  Sheila 
did.  He  showed  no  impatience  to  be  rid  of  this  man,  no 

325 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

eagerness  to  be  alone  with  his  wife  who  had  given  up  all 
her  own  industry  to  be  his  companion. 

No  instinct  warned  him  that  his  absorption  in  his 
business  was  imperiling  his  home,  nor  that  his  crony 
was  a  sneaking  conspirator  against  his  happiness. 

Sheila  was  wildly  excited,  but  she  pretended  to  be 
sleepy  and  yawningly  begged  to  be  excused.  It  was  an 
hour  later  before  Bret  finished  talking  and  she  heard  him 
exchange  cheery  good  nights  with  Jim  Greeley.  When 
Bret  arrived  up-stairs  she  pretended  to  be  asleep.  Before 
long  he  was  asleep,  worn  out  with  honest  toil,  while  she 
lay  battling  for  the  slumber  she  had  not  earned.  She  was 
sleeping  little  and  ill  nowadays,  and  she  rose  unrefreshed 
from  unhappy  nights  to  uninteresting  days.  The  effect 
on  her  health  was  growing  manifest. 


CHAPTER   XLVII 

HTHE  morning  after  the  Jim  Greeley  adventure  Sheila 
1  went  back  to  her  children  and  the  seaside.  She 
had  no  energy  and  everything  bored  her.  The  shock  of 
the  surf  did  not  thrill  her  with  new  energy ;  it  chilled  and 
weakened  her.  She  found  Dorothy  all  aflutter  over  the 
attentions  of  a  rich  old  widower  who  complimented  her 
brutally. 

Dorothy  called  him  her  "conquest"  and  spoke  of  her 
"flirtation."  Sheila  knew  that  she  used  the  words  rather 
childishly  than  with  any  significance,  but  her  face  betrayed 
a  certain  dismay. 

Dorothy  bristled  at  the  shadow  of  reproof.  ' '  Don't  look 
at  me  like  that !  I  guess  if  Jim  can  butterfly  around  the 
way  he  does  I'm  not  going  to  insult  everybody  that's  nice 
to  me." 

Sheila  disclaimed  any  criticism,  but  the  incident  alarmed 
her.  And  she  thought  of  what  Satan  provided  for  idle 
hands. 

Civilization  keeps  robbing  women  of  their  ancient  house 
work.  Spinning,  weaving,  grinding  corn,  making  clothes, 
and  twisting  lamp-lighters  are  gone.  Their  husbands  do 
not  want  them  to  cook  or  sweep  or  wait  upon  their  own 
children.  With  the  loss  of  their  back-breaking,  heart- 
withering  old  tasks  has  come  a  longer  life  of  beauty  and 
desire  and  a  greater  leisure  for  curiosity.  They  were  un 
happy  and  discontented  in  their  former  servitude.  They 
are  unhappy  and  discontented  in  their  useless  freedom. 

Sheila  saw  everywhere  evidences  that  grown-ups,  like 
children,  must  either  become  sloths  of  indolence,  or  find 

327 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

occupation,  or  take  up  mischief  for  a  business.     She  won 
dered  and  dreaded  what  the  future  might  hold  for  herself. 

The  summers  were  not  quite  so  hard  to  get  through, 
for  they  had  usually  been  periods  of  vacation  for  her. 
Sometimes  she  spent  a  month  or  two  with  her  father  and 
mother,  or  they  with  her.  Sometimes  old  Mrs.  Vining 
visited  her  and  shamed  her  with  the  activity  that  kept 
the  veteran  actress  alert  at  seventy  years. 

Sheila  found  a  cynical  amusement  in  pitting  Mrs. 
Vining  and  Bret's  mother  against  each  other.  They  began 
always  with  great  mutual  deference,  but  soon  the  vinegar 
of  age  began  to  render  their  comments  acidulous.  Mrs. 
Winfield  had  grown  old  in  the  domestic  world  and  the 
church.  Mrs.  Vining  had  grown  old  in  the  wicked 
theater.  Of  course  Sheila  was  prejudiced,  but  to  save 
her  she  could  not  discover  wherein  Mrs.  Winfield  was  the 
better  of  the  two.  She  was  certainly  narrower,  crueler, 
more  somber.  Moreover,  she  was  also  less  industrious,  for 
to  Sheila  the  hallowed  duties  of  the  household  were  not  in 
dustry  at  all,  or  at  best  were  the  proper  toil  for  servants. 
Mrs.  Winfield  seemed  to  her  to  be  a  Penelope  eternally 
reweaving  each  day  the  same  dull  pattern  she  had  woven 
the  day  before. 

When  the  autumn  came  her  father  and  mother  and  Mrs. 
Vining  and  the  other  theater  folk  emerged  from  their 
estivation  and  made  ready  for  the  year's  work,  while 
Sheila  must  return  to  the  idleness  of  the  village,  or  its 
more  insipid  dissipations. 

Daughter-in-law  and  mother-in-law  began  to  get  on 
each  other's  nerves.  Sheila  could  not  forget  the  glory  of 
the  theater.  Mrs.  Winfield  could  not  outgrow  her  horror 
of  it,  and  she  could  not  refrain  from  nagging  allusions  to 
its  baleful  influences.  To  Sheila  it  was  a  case  of  the  sooty 
pot  eternally  railing  at  the  simmering  kettle. 

One  day  Sheila  was  wrought  to  such  a  pitch  of  resent 
ment  that  she  blurted  out  the  whole  story  of  her  encounter 
with  Jim  Greeley. 

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CLIPPED    WINGS 

"He  was  no  actor,"  said  Sheila,  triumphantly,  "but 
he  tried  to  win  his  friend's  wife  away." 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Winfield,  "but  his  friend's  wife  was 
an  actress." 

Against  such  logic  Sheila  saw  that  she  would  beat  her 
head  in  vain.  She  suppressed  an  inclination  to  tear  her 
hair  out  and  dance  on  it.  And  she  gave  Mrs.  Winfield 
up  as  hopeless.  Mrs.  Winfield  had  long  before  given 
Sheila  up  as  beyond  redemption,  and  eventually  she 
moved  away  from  Blithevale  to  live  with  a  widowed  sister 
in  the  Middle  West. 

Sheila  asked  herself,  bitterly,  "What  am  I  getting  out 
of  life?  When  one  trouble  goes  another  bobs  into  its 
place."  By  the  time  the  mother-in-law  retired  the  chil 
dren  had  grown  up  to  a  noisy,  uncontrollable  restlessness 
that  drove  the  office-weary  Bret  frantic. 

It  was  he,  and  not  Sheila,  that  insisted  on  their  occa 
sional  flights  to  New  York,  where  they  made  the  rounds 
of  the  theaters.  Sometimes  Sheila  ran  back  on  the  stage 
to  embrace  her  old  friends  and  tell  them  how  happy  she 
was.  And  they  said  they  envied  her,  knowing  they  lied. 

They  always  asked  her,  "When  are  you  coming  back?" 
and  when  she  always  answered,  "Never,"  they  did  not 
believe  her.  Yet  they  saw  that  discontent  was  aging  her. 
Discontent  was  never  yet  a  fountain  of  youth. 

Sheila  returned  to  Blithevale  like  a  caught  convict. 
Plays  came  there  occasionally,  and  Bret  liked  to  see 
them  as  an  escape  from  the  worries  he  found  at  home 
or  the  worries  that  followed  him  from  the  office.  He 
enjoyed  particularly  the  entertainments  concocted  with 
the  much-abused  mission  of  furnishing  relaxation  for  the 
tired  business  man.  As  if  the  tired  business  man  were 
not  an  important  and  pathetic  figure,  and  his  refreshment 
one  of  the  noblest  and  most  needful  acts  of  charity. 

At  these  times  when  Sheila  sat  and  watched  other 
people  playing,  and  often  playing  atrociously,  the  rfiles 
22  329 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

that  she  should  have  played  or  would  have  enjoyed,  her 
homesickness  for  the  boards  swept  over  her  in  waves  of 
anguish.  Sometimes  the  yearning  to  act  goaded  her  so 
cruelly  that  she  almost  swooned.  She  felt  like  a  canary 
full  of  song  with  her  tongue  cut  out. 

Now  and  then  Eugene  Vickery  came  to  visit  his  sister 
Dorothy.  He  usually  spent  a  deal  of  time  with  Bret  and 
Sheila. 

He  was  a  different  Eugene  so  far  as  success  and  failure 
can  alter  a  man.  That  play  of  his  which  Sheila  had  tried 
in  stock  and  Reben  had  allowed  to  lapse  Eugene  had 
patched  up  and  sold  to  another  manager  who  had  a  star 
in  tow. 

Play  and  star  had  been  flayed  with  jubilant  enthusiasm 
by  the  New  York  critics,  but  had  drawn  enough  of  the 
public  to  keep  them  on  Broadway  awhile,  and  then  had 
succeeded  substantially  on  the  road  in  the  cheaper  theaters 
known  as  the  "dollar  houses." 

Vickery  the  scholar  was  both  irritated  and  amused  by 
the  irony  of  his  success.  Almost  illiterate  journalists 
called  his  wisdom  trash  and  only  the  less  sophisticated 
people  would  accept  it.  His  feelings  were  only  partly 
soothed  by  the  dollar  anodyne  and  the  solace  of  regular 
royalties. 

His  manager  ordered  another  play,  and  Vickery  tried 
to  write  down  to  his  public.  The  result  was  a  dismal 
fiasco,  critically  and  box-officially.  The  lesson  was  worth 
the  price.  He  went  back  to  writing  for  himself  in  the 
belief  that  if  he  could  succeed  in  the  private  theater  of 
his  own  heart  he  would  be  sure  at  least  of  one  sympathetic 
auditor.  That  was  one  more  than  the  insincere  writer 
could  count  on. 

His  bookish  tastes  and  training  led  him  to  a  bookish 
ideal.  He  felt  that  the  highest  dramatic  art  was  in  the 
blank-verse  form,  and  he  felt  that  there  was  something 
nobler  in  the  good  old  times  of  costumes  and  rhetoric. 

330 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

In  fact,  blank  verse  demanded  heroic  garb,  for  when  the 
words  strut  the  speakers  must.  His  Americanism  was 
revealed  only  in  the  fact  that  he  chose  for  his  chief  char 
acter  a  man  struggling  for  liberty,  for  the  right  of  being 
himself. 

He  selected  the  epic  argosy  of  the  Puritans  and  their 
battle  for  freedom  of  worship.  His  central  figure  was  a 
granite  and  velvet  soul  of  the  type  of  Roger  Williams. 

He  told  Sheila  and  Bret  a  little  about  his  scheme  and 
they  thought  it  wonderful.  Bret  found  any  literary 
creation  incredibly  ingenious,  though  more  brilliant  mental 
processes  applied  to  mechanical  problems  seemed  simple 
enough. 

Sheila  thought  Vickery's  plan  wonderful  because  her 
heart  swelled  at  the  lofty  program  of  the  plot.  Blank 
verse  had  been  her  first  religion  and  Shakespeare  her  first 
Scripture.  It  was  one  of  her  bitterest  regrets  that  she 
had  never  paid  the  master  the  tribute  of  a  performance 
of  any  of  his  works  since  she  adapted  his  "Hamlet"  to 
the  needs  of  her  own  children's  theater. 

"Who's  going  to  play  your  hero?"  Bret  asked,  idly. 

Vickery  answered,  "Well,  I  haven't  read  it  to  him  yet, 
but  there's  only  one  man  in  the  country  with  the  brains 
and  the  skill  and  the  good  looks." 

"And  who  might  all  that  be?"  Sheila  asked,  with  a 
laugh. 

"  Floyd  Eldon." 

The  name  seemed  to  drop  into  a  well  of  silence. 

Vickery  had  forgotten  for  the  moment  the  feud  of  the 
two  men.  The  silence  recalled  it  to  him.  He  spoke  with 
vexation : 

"Good  Lord,  people!  haven't  you  got  over  that  ancient 
trouble  yet?  When  a  grudge  gets  more  than  so  old  the 
board  of  health  ought  to  cart  it  away.  Eldon's  got  over 
it,  I  know.  A  year  or  two  ago  he  was  telling  me  how 
kindly  he  felt  toward  Sheila  and  how  he  didn't  really 
blame  Bret." 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Bret  was  not  at  all  obliged  for  Eldon's  magnanimity, 
but  Vickery  went  on  singing  Eldon's  praises  till  he  noticed 
the  profound  silence  of  his  auditors.  He  suddenly  felt  as 
if  he  had  been  speaking  in  an  empty  room.  He  saw  that 
Bret  was  sullen  and  Sheila  uneasy.  Vickery  spread  the 
praise  a  little  thicker  in  sheer  vexation. 

"Reben  is  going  to  star  Eldon  the  minute  he  finds  his 
play.  I'm  hoping  I  can  fit  him  with  this.  He's  on  the 
way  up  and  I  want  to  ride  up  on  his  coat-tails.  He's  a 
gentleman,  a  scholar,  an  athlete — " 

"But,  after  all,  he's  an  actor,"  sniffed  Bret. 

"So  was  Shakespeare,  the  noblest  mind  in  English 
literature." 

"  I  don't  care  for  the  type,"  said  Bret.  "Always  posing, 
always  talking  about  themselves." 

"Thanks,  dear,"  said  Sheila,  flushing. 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  you,  honey,"  Bret  expostulated. 
"That's  why  I  loved  you — you  almost  never  talk  about 
yourself.  You're  everything  that's  fine." 

Vickery  tried  to  restore  the  conversation  to  safer 
generalities.  "Actors  talk  about  their  personality  some 
times  because  that  is  what  they  are  putting  on  the  market. 
But  did  you  ever  hear  traveling-men  talk  about  their  line 
of  goods?  or  clergymen  about  the  church?  or  manu 
facturers  about  what  they  are  making?  Do  you  ever  talk 
shop  yourself?" 

"  Oh  no !"  Sheila  laughed  ironically,  and  now  Bret  flushed. 

"Shop  talk  is  merely  a  question  of  manners,"  said 
Vickery.  "Some  people  know  enough  not  to  talk  about 
themselves,  and  some  don't.  There  are  lots  of  old  women 
that  will  talk  you  to  death  about  their  cooks  and  their 
aches.  I'm  one  of  those  who  jaw  about  themselves  all 
the  time.  It's  not  because  I'm  conceited,  for  the  Lord 
knows  I  have  too  much  reason  for  modesty.  It's  just  a 
habit.  Eldon  hasn't  got  it.  He'll  talk  about  a  r61e,  or 
about  an  audience,  but  you'll  never  hear  him  praise  him 
self.  And  there  are  plenty  of  actors  like  him." 

332 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

Bret  grunted  his  disbelief. 

"You  don't  know  enough  of  them  to  be  a  judge," 
Vickery  insisted. 

"No,  and  I  don't  want  to,"  Bret  growled.  "I  prefer 
good,  honest,  wholesome,  normal,  real  men — men  like  Jim 
Greeley  and  other  friends  of  mine." 

A  little  shiver  passed  through  Sheila.  Bret  felt  it, 
and  assumed  that  she  was  distressed  at  hearing  Eldon's 
name  taken  in  vain.  Vickery  was  not  impressed  with 
the  choice  of  his  brother-in-law  as  an  ideal.  Dorothy 
had  told  him  too  much  about  Jim.  He  did  not  suspect, 
however,  that  Sheila  had  cause  to  loathe  him.  He  con 
tinued  to  talk  his  own  shop,  and  to  praise  Eldon,  to 
celebrate  his  progress,  his  increasing  science  in  the  dy 
namics  of  theatricism. 

"He's  becoming  a  great  comedian,"  he  said.  "And 
comedy  requires  brains.  Pathos  and  tragedy  are  more 
or  less  matters  of  emotion  and  temperament,  but  comedy 
is  a  science." 

As  Vickery  chanted  Eldon  up,  Sheila's  eyes  began  to 
glow  again.  Bret  fumed  with  jealousy,  imputing  that 
glow  of  hers  to  enthusiasm  for  Eldon. 

The  fact  was  that  she  was  thinking  of  Eldon  without  a 
trace  of  affection.  She  was  thinking  of  him  as  a  suc 
cessful  competitor,  as  a  beginner  who  was  forging  ahead 
and  growing  expert,  growing  famous  while  she  had  fallen 
out  of  the  race. 

She  was  more  jealous  of  Eldon  than  Bret  was. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII 

OHEILA  suffered  the  very  same  feeling  to  a  more 
O  sickening  degree,  a  little  later,  when  "The  Woman 
Pays"  company,  now  in  its  fourth  year,  reached  Blithe- 
vale  in  cleaning  up  the  lesser  one-night  stands.  The  play 
that  Sheila  had  rejected  had  become  the  corner-stone  of 
Reben's  fortunes.  It  was  as  inartistic  and  plebeian  and 
reminiscent  as  apple  pie.  But  the  public  loves  apple  pie 
and  consumes  tons  of  it,  to  the  great  neglect  of  marrons 
glaces. 

That  play  was  a  commodity  for  which  there  is  always 
a  market.  A  great  artist  could  adorn  it,  but  it  was  almost 
actor-proof  against  destruction. 

Even  Dulcie  Ormerod  could  not  spoil  it  for  its  public. 
When  she  played  it  Batterson  gnashed  his  teeth  and 
Reben  held  his  aching  head,  but  there  were  enough  in 
judicious  persons  left  to  make  up  eight  good  audiences  a 
week. 

Dulcie  "killed  her  laughs"  by  fidgeting  or  by  reading 
humorously  or  by  laughing  herself.  She  lost  the  audience's 
tears  by  the  copiousness  of  her  own.  But  she  loved  the 
play  and  still  "knew  she  was  great  because  she  wept  her 
self."  When  she  laughed  she  showed  teeth  that  speedily 
earned  a  place  in  the  advertisement  of  dentifrice,  and  when 
she  wept,  a  certain  sort  of  audience  was  overawed  by  the 
sight  of  a  genuine  tear.  Real  water  has  always  been 
impressive  on  the  stage. 

By  sheer  force  of  longevity  the  play  slid  her  up  among 
the  prominent  women  of  the  day.  She  stuck  to  the  r61e 
for  four  years,  and  was  beginning  to  hope  to  rival  the 

334 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

records  of  Joseph  Jefferson,  Denman  Thompson,  Maggie 
Mitchell,  and  Lotta. 

The  night  the  company  played  in  Blithevale  Bret  and 
Eugene,  Sheila,  Dorothy  and  her  Jim,  made  up  a  box- 
party. 

Jim  proclaimed  that  Dulcie  was  a  "peach,"  but  he  al 
luded  less  to  the  art  she  did  not  possess  than  to  the  charms 
she  had.  She  was  pretty,  there  was  no  question  of  that — 
as  shapely  and  characterless  as  a  Bouguereau  painting,  as 
coarsely  sweet  as  granulated  sugar.  Dorothy  credited  her 
with  all  the  winsome  qualities  of  the  character  she  assumed, 
and  took  a  keen  dislike  to  the  actress  who  played  the 
adventuress,  an  estimable  woman  and  a  genuine  artist 
whose  oxfords  Dulcie  was  not  fit  to  untie. 

Eugene  and  Sheila  suffered  from  Dulcie's  utter  falsehood 
of  impersonation.  Even  Bret  felt  some  mysterious  gulf 
between  Dulcie's  interpretation  and  Sheila's  as  he  re 
membered  it. 

Sheila  was  afraid  to  speak  her  opinion  of  Dulcie  lest  it 
seem  mere  jealousy.  Eugene  voiced  it  for  her. 

"  To  think  that  such  a  heifer  is  a  star !  Getting  rich  and 
getting  admiration,"  he  growled,  "while  a  genius  like 
Sheila  rusts  in  idleness.  It's  a  crime." 

"  It's  all  my  fault,"  said  Bret.     "  I  cut  her  out  of  it." 

"Don't  you  believe  it,  honey,"  Sheila  cooed.  "I'd 
rather  be  starring  in  your  home  than  earning  a  million 
dollars  before  the  public." 

But  somehow  there  was  a  clank  of  false  rhetoric  in  the 
speech.  It  was  lover's  extravagance,  and  even  Bret  felt 
that  it  could  not  quite  be  true,  or  that,  if  it  were  true, 
somehow  it  ought  not  to  be. 

He  felt  himself  a  dog  in  the  manger,  yet  he  was  glad  that 
Sheila  was  not  up  there  with  some  actor's  arms  about  her. 

After  the  third  act  Dulcie  sent  the  company-manager — 
still  Mr.  McNish — to  invite  Mrs.  Winfield  to  come  back 
at  the  end  of  the  play. 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

Sheila  had  hoped  to  escape  this  test  of  her  nerves, 
but  there  was  no  escape.  She  felt  that  if  Dulcie  were 
haughty  over  her  success  she  would  hate  her,  and  if 
she  were  not  haughty  and  tried  to  be  gracious  she  would 
hate  her  more. 

Dulcie  assumed  the  latter  r61e  and  played  it  badly. 
She  condescended  as  from  a  great  height,  patronized  like 
a  society  patroness.  Worse  yet,  she  pawed  Sheila  and 
called  her  "Sheila"  and  "dearie"  and  congratulated  her 
on  having  such  a  nice  quiet  life  in  such  a  dear  little  village, 
while  "poor  me"  had  to  play  forty  weeks  a  year.  Sheila 
wanted  to  scratch  her  big  doll-eyes  out. 

On  the  way  home  Bret  confessed  that  it  rather  hurt 
him  to  see  a  "dub  like  Dulcie  rattling  round  in  Sheila's 
shoes."  The  metaphor  was  meant  better  than  it  came 
out,  but  Sheila  was  not  thinking  of  that  when  she  groaned: 

"Don't  speak  of  it." 

Bret  invited  Vickery  to  stop  in  for  a  bit  of  supper  and 
Vickery  accepted,  to  Bret's  regret.  Sheila  excused  her 
self  from  lingering  and  left  Bret  to  smoke  out  Vickery, 
who  was  in  a  midnight  mood  of  garrulity.  The  play 
wright  watched  Sheila  trudge  wearily  up  the  staircase,  worn 
out  with  lack  of  work.  He  turned  on  Bret  and  growled: 

"Bret,  there  goes  the  pitifulest  case  of  frustrated 
genius  I  ever  saw.  It's  a  sin  to  chain  a  great  artist  like 
that  to  a  baby-carriage." 

Bret  turned  scarlet  at  the  insolence  of  this,  but  Vickery 
was  too  feeble  to  be  knocked  down.  He  was  leaner  than 
ever,  and  his  eyes  were  like  wet  buckeyes.  His  speech 
was  punctuated  with  coughs.  As  he  put  it,  he  "coughed 
commas."  Also  he  coughed  cigarette  -  smoke  usually. 
His  friends  blamed  his  cough  to  his  cigarettes,  but  they 
knew  better,  and  so  did  he. 

He  was  in  a  hurry  to  do  some  big  work  before  he  was 
coughed  out.  It  infuriated  him  to  feel  genius  within 
himself  and  have  so  little  strength  or  time  for  its  expres 
sion.  It  enraged  him  to  see  another  genius  with  health 

336 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

and  every  advantage  kept  from  publication  by  a  hus 
band's  selfishness. 

He  was  in  one  of  his  irascible  spells  to-night  and  he  had 
no  mercy  on  Bret.  He  spoke  with  the  fretful  tyranny 
of  an  invalid. 

"It's  none  of  my  business,  I  suppose,  Bret,  but  I  tell 
you  it  makes  me  sick — sick!  to  see  Sheila  cooped  up  in 
this  little  town.  New  York  would  go  wild  over  her — 
yes,  and  London,  too.  There's  an  awful  dearth  on  the 
stage  of  young  women  with  beauty  and  training.  She 
could  have  everything  her  own  way.  She's  a  peculiarly 
brilliant  artist  who  never  had  her  chance.  If  she  had 
reached  her  height  and  quit — fine!  But  she  was  snuffed 
out  just  as  she  was  beginning  to  glow.  It  was  like  lighting 
a  lamp  and  blowing  it  out  the  minute  the  flame  begins  to 
climb  on  the  wick. 

' '  Dulcie  Ormerod  and  hundreds  of  her  sort  are  buzzing 
away  like  cheap  gas-jets  while  a  Sheila  Kemble  is  here. 
She  could  be  making  thousands  of  people  happy,  softening 
their  hearts,  teaching  them  sympathy  and  charm  and 
breadth  of  outlook;  and  she's  teaching  children  not  to 
rub  their  porridge-plates  in  their  hair! 

"Thousands  used  to  listen  to  every  syllable  of  hers  and 
forget  their  troubles.  Now  she  listens  to  your  factory 
troubles.  She  listens  to  the  squabbles  of  a  couple  of  nice 
little  kids  who  would  rather  be  outdoors  playing  with 
other  kids  all  day,  as  they  ought  to  be. 

"It's  like  taking  a  lighthouse  and  turning  the  lens 
away  from  the  sea  into  the  cabbage-patch  of  the  keeper." 

"Go  right  on,"  Bret  said,  with  labored  restraint. 
"Don't  mind  me.  I'm  old-fashioned.  I  believe  that  a 
good  home  with  a  loving  husband  and  some  nice  kids  is 
good  enough  for  a  good  woman.  I  believe  that  such  a  life 
is  a  success.  Where  should  a  wife  be  but  at  home?" 

"That  depends  on  the  wife,  Bret.  Most  wives  belong 
at  home,  yes.  Most  men  belong  at  home,  too.  They  are 
born  farmers  and  shoemakers  and  school-teachers  and 

337 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

chemists  and  inventors,  and  all  glory  to  them  for  staying 
there.  But  where  did  Christopher  Columbus  belong? 
Where  would  you  be  if  he  had  stayed  at  home?" 

"But  Sheila  isn't  a  man!" 

"Well,  then,  did  Florence  Nightingale  belong  at  home? 
or  Joan  of  Arc?" 

"Oh,  well,  nurses  and  patriots  and  people  like  that!" 

"What  about  Jenny  Lind  and  Patti?" 

1 '  They  were  singers . ' ' 

"And  Sheila  is  a  singer,  only  in  unaccompanied  recita 
tive.  Actors  are  nurses  and  doctors,  too;  they  take 
people  who  are  sick  of  their  hard  day's  work  and  they 
cure  'em  up,  give  'em  a  change  of  climate." 

"Home  was  good  enough  for  our  mothers,"  Bret 
grumbled,  sinking  back  obstinately  in  his  chair. 

"Oh  no,  it  wasn't." 

"They  were  contented." 

"Contented!  hah!  that's  a  word  we  use  for  other 
people's  patience.  Old-fashioned  women  were  not  con 
tented.  We  say  they  were  because  other  people's  sorrows 
don't  bother  us,  especially  when  they  are  dead.  But 
they  mattered  then  to  them.  If  you  ever  read  the  news 
papers  of  those  days,  or  the  letters,  or  the  novels,  or  the 
plays,  you'll  find  that  people  were  not  contented  in  the 
past  at  any  time. 

"People  used  to  say  that  laborers  were  contented  to 
be  treated  like  cattle.  But  they  weren't,  and  since  they 
learned  how  to  lift  their  heads  they've  demanded  more 
and  more." 

Bret  had  been  having  a  prolonged  wrestle  with  a  labor- 
union.  He  snarled:  " Don't  you  quote  the  laboring-men 
tome.  There's  no  satisfying  them !" 

"And  it's  for  the  good  of  the  world  that  they  should 
demand  more.  It's  for  the  good  of  the  world  that  every 
body  should  be  doing  his  best,  and  getting  all  there  is  in  it 
and  out  of  it  and  wanting  more." 

"Is  nobody  to  stay  at  home?" 

338 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"Of  course!  There's  my  sister  Dorothy — nicest  girl  in 
the  world,  but  not  temperamental  enough  to  make  a 
flea  wink.  She's  got  sense  enough  to  know  it.  You 
couldn't  drive  her  on  the  stage.  Why  the  devil  didn't 
you  marry  her?  Then  you  both  could  have  stayed  at 
home.  You  belong  at  home  because  you're  a  manu 
facturer.  I  should  stay  at  home  because  I'm  a  writer. 
But  a  postman  oughtn't  to  stay  at  home,  or  a  ship- 
captain,  or  a  fireman." 

Bret  attempted  a  mild  sarcasm:  "So  all  the  women 
ought  to  leave  home  and  go  on  the  stage,  eh?" 

Vickery  threw  up  his  hands.  "God  forbid!  I  think 
that  nine-tenths  of  the  actresses  ought  to  leave  the  stage 
and  go  home.  Too  many  of  them  are  there  because 
there  was  nowhere  else  to  go  or  they  drifted  in  by  accident. 
Nice,  stupid,  fatheads  who  would  be  the  makings  of  a 
farm  or  an  orphan-asylum  are  trying  to  interpret  com 
plicated  roles.  Dulcie  Ormerod  ought  to  be  waiting  on 
a  lunch-counter,  sassing  brakemen  and  brightening  the  lot 
of  the  traveling-men.  But  women  like  Mrs.  Siddons  and 
Ellen  Terry,  Bernhardt  and  Duse  and  Charlotte  Cushman 
and  Marlowe  and  any  number  of  others,  including  Mrs. 
Bret  Winfield,  ought  to  be  traveling  the  country  like 
missionaries  of  art  and  culture  and  morality." 

"Morality!"  Bret  roared.  "The  stage  is  no  place  for 
a  good  woman,  and  you  know  it." 

"Oh,  bosh!     In  the  first  place,  what  is  a  good  woman?" 

"A  woman  who  is  virtuous  and  honorable  and  in 
dustrious  and —  Well,  you  know  what  'good'  means  as 
well  as  I  do." 

"I  know  a  lot  better  than  you  do,  you  old  mud-turtle. 
There  are  plenty  of  good  women  on  the  stage.  And  there 
are  plenty  of  bad  ones  off.  There  are  more  Command 
ments  than  one,  and  more  than  one  way  for  a  woman  to 
be  bad.  There  are  plenty  of  wives  here  in  Blithevale 
whose  physical  fidelity  you  could  never  question,  though 
they're  simply  wallowing  in  other  sins.  You  know  lots 

339 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

of  wives  that  you  can't  say  a  word  against  except  that 
they  are  loafers,  money-wasters,  naggers  of  children, 
torturers  of  husbands,  scourges  of  neighbors,  enemies  of 
everything  worth  while — otherwise  they  are  all  right. 

"They  neglect  their  little  ones'  minds;  never  teach 
them  a  lofty  ideal ;  just  teach  them  hatred  and  lying  and 
selfishness  and  snobbery  and  spite  and  conceit.  They 
make  religion  a  cloak  for  backbiting  and  false  witness. 
And  they're  called  good  women.  I  tell  you  it's  an  out 
rage  on  the  word  'good.'  'Good'  is  a  great  word.  It 
ought  to  be  used  for  something  besides  'the  opposite  of 
sensual'!" 

"All  right,"  Bret  agreed,  "use  it  any  way  you  want  to. 
You'll  admit,  I  suppose,  that  a  good  woman  ought  to 
perpetuate  her  goodness.  A  good  woman  ought  to  have 
children." 

"Yes,  if  she  can." 

"And  take  care  of  them  and  sacrifice  herself  for  them." 

"Why  sacrifice  herself?" 

"So  that  the  race  may  progress." 

"How  is  it  going  to  progress  if  you  sacrifice  the  best 
fruits  of  it  ?  Suppose  the  mother  is  a  genius  of  the  highest 
type,  a  beautiful-bodied,  brilliant-minded,  wholesome 
genius.  Why  should  she  be  sacrificed  to  her  children? 
They  can't  be  any  greater  than  she  is.  Since  genius  isn't 
inherited  or  taught,  they'll  undoubtedly  be  inferior.  And 
at  that  they  may  die  before  they  grow  up.  Why  kill  a 
sure  thing  for  a  doubtful  one?" 

"You  don't  believe  in  the  old-fashioned  woman." 

"She's  still  as  much  in  fashion  as  she  ever  was.  The 
old-fashionedest  woman  on  record  was  Eve.  She  meddled 
and  got  her  husband  fired  out  of  Paradise.  And  she 
never  had  any  stage  ambitions  or  asked  for  a  vote  or  wore 
Paris  clothes,  but  she  wasn't  much  of  a  success  as  a  wife ; 
and  as  a  mother  all  we  know  of  her  home  influence  was 
that  one  of  her  sons  killed  the  other  and  got  driven  into 
the  wilderness.  You  can't  do  much  worse  than  that. 

340 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Even  if  Eve  had  been  an  actress  and  gone  on  the  road,  her 
record  couldn't  have  been  much  worse,  could  it?" 

Bret  was  boxing  heavily  and  sleepily  with  a  contemptu 
ous  patience.  "You  think  women  ought  to  be  allowed 
to  go  gadding  about  wherever  they  please?" 

"Of  course  I  do!  What's  the  good  of  virtue  that  is 
due  to  being  in  jail?  We  know  that  men  are  more  honest, 
more  decent,  more  idealistic,  more  romantic,  than  women. 
Why?  Because  we  have  liberty.  Because  we  have  our 
selves  to  blame  for  our  rottenness.  Because  we've  got 
nobody  to  hide  behind.  The  reason  so  many  women  are 
such  liars  and  gossips  and  so  merciless  to  one  another 
is  because  they  are  so  penned  in,  because  all  the  different 
kinds  of  women  are  expected  to  live  just  the  same  way 
after  they  are  married.  But  some  of  them  are  bad 
mothers  because  they  have  no  outlet  for  their  genius. 
Some  of  them  would  be  better  wives  if  they  had  more 
liberty." 

Bret  was  entirely  unconvinced.  "You're  not  trying  to 
tell  me  that  the  stage  is  better  than  the  average  village?" 

"  No,  but  I  think  it's  as  good.  There  will  never  be  any 
lack  of  sin.  But  the  sin  that  goes  on  in  harems  and  jails 
and  hide-bound  communities  is  worse  than  the  sin  of  free 
people  busily  at  work  in  the  splendid  fields  of  art  and 
science  and  literature  and  drama  and  commerce. 

"I  think  Sheila  belongs  to  the  public.  I  don't  see  why 
she  couldn't  be  a  better  wife  and  a  better  mother  for 
being  an  eminent  artist.  And  I  like  you,  Bret,  so  much. 
You're  as  decent  a  fellow  at  heart  as  anybody  I  know. 
I  hate  to  have  it  you,  of  all  men,  that's  crushing  Sheila's 
soul  out  of  her.  I  hate  to  think  that  I  introduced  you 
to  her.  And  I  let  you  cut  me  out. 

"She  wouldn't  have  loved  me  if  she'd  married  me,  but, 
by  the  Lord  Harry !  her  name  would  be  a  household  word 
in  all  the  homes  in  the  country  instead  of  just  one." 

Vickery  dropped  to  a  divan  and  lay  outstretched,  ex 
hausted  with  his  oration.  Bret  sat  with  his  lips  pursed 

34i 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

and  his  fingers  gabled  in  long  meditation.     At  length  he 
spoke: 

"I'm  not  such  a  brute  as  you  think,  'Gene.  I  don't 
want  to  sacrifice  anybody  to  myself,  least  of  all  the  woman 
I  idolize.  If  Sheila  wants  to  leave  me  and  go  back,  I'll 
not  hinder  her.  I  couldn't  if  I  wanted  to.  There's  no 
law  that  enables  a  man  to  get  out  an  injunction  against 
his  wife  going  on  the  stage.  If  she  wants  to  go,  why 
doesn't  she?" 

Vickery  sat  up  on  the  couch  and  snapped :  "  Because  she 
loves  you,  damn  it !  I'm  madder  at  her  than  I  am  at  you." 
Then  he  fell  back  again,  puffing  his  cigarette  spitefully. 

Bret  smoked  slowly  at  a  long  cigar.  He  was  thinking 
long  thoughts. 

A  little  later  Vickery  spoke  again:  "Besides,  Sheila 
won't  say  she  wants  to  go  back,  for  fear  it  would  hurt 
your  feelings." 

Bret  took  this  very  seriously.    "You  think  so?" 

"I  know  so." 

Bret  smoked  his  cigar  to  ash,  then  he  rose  with  effort  and 
solemnity,  went  to  the  door,  and  called,  "Oh,  Sheila!" 

From  somewhere  in  the  clouds  came  her  voice — the 
beautiful  Sheila  voice,  "Yes,  dear." 

"  Come  to  the  stairs  a  minute,  will  you?" 

"Yes,  dear." 

Vickery  had  risen  wonderingly.  He  could  not  see 
Sheila's  nightcapped  head  as  she  looked  over  the  balus 
trade.  He  did  not  know  that  Sheila  had  been  listening  to 
his  eulogy  of  her  and  agreeing  passionately  with  his  re 
grets  at  her  idleness. 

"  'Gene  here,"  said  Bret,  "has  been  roasting  me  for 
keeping  you  off  the  stage.  I  want  him  to  hear  me  tell 
you  that  I'm  not  keeping  you  off  the  stage.  Do  you 
want  to  go  on  the  stage,  Sheila?" 

Sheila's  voice  was  housewifely  and  matter-of-fact.  "  Of 
course  not.  I  want  to  go  to  bed.  And  it's  time  'Gene 
was  in  his.  Send  him  home." 

342 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

She  heard  Bret  cry,  "You  see!"  and  heard  his  triumph 
ant  laughter  as  he  clapped  Vickery  on  the  shoulder.  Then 
she  went  to  her  room  and  locked  herself  in.  The  click 
of  the  bolt  had  the  sound  of  a  jailer's  key.  She  was  a 
prisoner  in  a  cell,  in  a  solitary  confinement,  since  her  hus 
band's  soul  was  leagues  away  from  any  sympathy  with 
hers.  She  paced  the  floor  like  a  caged  panther,  and  when 
the  sobs  came  she  fell  on  her  knees  and  silenced  them 
in  her  pillow  lest  Bret  hear  her.  She  had  made  her 
renunciation  and  plighted  her  troth.  She  would  keep 
faith  with  her  lover  though  she  felt  that  it  was  killing  her. 
Her  soul  was  dying  of  starvation. 


CHAPTER  XLIX 

VICKERY  went  to  his  sister's  house  and  sat  up  all 
night,  working  on  his  play  for  Eldon.  For  months 
he  toiled  and  moiled  upon  it.  Sometimes  he  would  write 
all  day  and  all  night  upon  a  scene,  and  work  himself  up 
into  a  state  of  what  he  called  soul-sweat. 

He  would  go  to  bed  patting  himself  on  the  shoulder  and 
talking  to  himself  as  if  he  were  a  draught-horse  and  a 
Pegasus  combined:  "Good  boy,  'Gene!  Good  work,  old 
Genius!" 

In  the  morning  he  would  wake  feeling  all  the  after 
effects  of  a  prolonged  carouse.  He  would  reach  for  a 
cigarette  and  review  with  contempt  all  he  had  previously 
done.  No  critic  could  have  reviled  his  work  with  less 
sympathy. 

"By  night  I  write  plays  and  by  day  I  write  criticisms," 
he  would  say. 

Lazily  he  would  cough  himself  out  of  bed,  cough  through 
his  tub  and  into  his  clothes,  and  go  to  his  table  like  a  surly 
butcher  to  carve  his  play  with  long  slashes  of  the  blue 
pencil. 

At  length  he  had  it  as  nearly  finished  as  any  play  is 
likely  to  be  before  it  has  been  read.  He  went  to  New 
York,  where  Eldon  was  playing,  and  easily  persuaded  him 
to  listen  to  the  drama.  Vickery  would  not  explain  the 
story  of  the  play  beforehand. 

"  I  want  you  to  get  it  the  way  the  audience  does." 

He  marched  his  buskined  blank  verse  with  the  elocution 
of  a  poet  and  all  the  sonority  his  raucous  voice  could  lend 
him.  He  was  shocked  to  note  that  Eldon  was  not  helping 

344 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

him  along  with  enthusiasm.  His  voice  wavered,  faltered, 
sank.  He  was  hardly  audible  at  the  climax  of  his  big 
third  act. 

Here  the  Puritan  hero,  who  had  left  the  Old  World  for 
the  New  World  and  liberty,  discovered  that  the  other 
Puritans  wanted  liberty  only  for  themselves,  and  so 
abhorred  his  principles  of  toleration  that  they  exiled 
him  into  the  wilderness,  mercilessly  expecting  him  to 
perish  in  the  blizzards  or  at  the  hands  of  the  Indians. 
The  hero,  like  another  Roger  Williams,  turned  and 
denounced  them,  then  vowed  to  found  a  state  where  a 
man  could  call  his  soul  his  own,  and  plunged  into  the 
storm. 

Vickery  closed  the  manuscript  and  gulped  down  a 
glass  of  water.  He  had  not  looked  at  Eldon  for  two  acts; 
he  did  not  look  at  him  now.  He  simply  growled,  "Sorry 
it  bored  you  so." 

"It  doesn't  bore  me!"  Eldon  protested.  "It's  mag 
nificent — " 

"But — "  Vickery  prompted. 

"But  nothing.  Only — well — you  see  you  said  it  was 
a  play  for  me,  and  I — I've  been  trying  to  like  it  for  myself. 
But — welt,  it's  too  good  for  me.  I  feel  like  a  man  who 
ordered  a  suit  of  overalls  and  finds  that  the  tailor  has 
brought  him  an  ermine  robe  and  velvet  breeches.  It's 
too  gorgeous  for  me." 

"Nonsense!"  said  Vickery.  "You  don't  have  to  soft- 
soap  me.  Why  don't  you  like  it?" 

"  I  do !  As  a  work  of  art  it  is  a  masterpiece.  The  fault 
is  mine.  You  see,  I  admire  the  classic  blank-verse  plays 
so  much  that  I  wish  people  wouldn't  try  to  write  any 
more  of  them.  They're  not  in  the  spirit  of  our  age.  In 
Shakespeare's  time  men  wore  long  curls  and  combed 
them  in  public,  and  tied  love-knots  in  them  and  wrote 
madigrals  and  picked  their  teeth  artistically  with  a  golden 
picktooth.  The  best  of  them  cried  like  babies  when  their 
feelings  were  hurt. 

23  345 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"Nowadays  we'd  lynch  a  man  that  behaved  as  they 
did.  Then  they  tried  to  use  the  most  eloquent  words. 
Now  we  try  to  use  the  simplest  or,  better  yet,  none  at  all. 
I  think  that  our  way  is  bigger  than  theirs,  but,  anyway, 
it's  our  way. 

"And  then  the  Puritans.  I  admire  them  in  spots. 
My  people  came  over  in  one  of  the  early  boats.  But 
plays  about  Puritans  never  succeed.  Do  you  know  why? 
It's  because  the  Puritans  preached  the  gospel  of  Don't! 
Everything  was  Don't — don't  dance,  don't  sing,  don't 
kiss,  don't  have  fun,  don't  wear  bright  colors,  don't 
go  to  plays,  don't  have  a  good  time.  But  the  theater  is 
the  place  where  people  go  to  have  a  good  time,  a  good 
laugh,  a  good  cry,  or  a  good  scare.  The  whole  soul  of  the 
theater  is  to  reconcile-  people  with  life  and  with  one 
another. 

"The  Puritans  call  the  theater  immoral.  It  is  so 
blamed  moral  that  it  is  untrue  to  life  half  the  time,  for 
wickedness  always  has  to  be  punished  in  the  theater,  and 
we  know  it  isn't  in  real  life. 

"And  another  thing,  Vick,  why  should  the  theater  do 
anything  for  the  Puritans?  They  never  did  anything  for 
us  except  to  tear  down  the  playhouses  and  call  the  actors 
hard  names.  And  what  good  came  of  it  all? 

"Here's  a  book  I  picked  up  about  the  Puritans,  because 
it  has  a  lot  about  my  ancestors.  They  had  a  daughter 
named  Remember  and  a  son  named  Wrastle.  But  look 
at  this."  Eldon  got  up,  found  the  volume,  and  hunted 
for  the  page,  as  he  raged:  "Now  the  Puritans  in  our 
country  had  none  of  the  alleged  causes  of  immorality — 
they  had  no  novels,  no  plays,  no  grand  or  comic  operas, 
no  nude  art,  no  vaudeville,  no  tango,  and  no  moving 
pictures.  They  ought  to  have  been  pretty  good,  eh? 
Well,  take  a  peek  at  what  their  Governor  William  Brad 
ford  writes." 

He  handed  the  book  to  Vickery,  whose  eyes  roved  along 
the  page: 

346 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Anno  Dom:  1642.  Marvilous  it  may  be  to  see  and  consider 
how  some  kind  of  wickednes  did  grow  breake  forth  here,  in 
a  land  wher  the  same  was  so  much  witnesed  against,  and  so 
narrowly  looked  unto,&  severly  punished  when  it  was  knowne; 
as  in  no  place  more,  and  so  much,  that  I  have  known  or  head  of 

espetially  drunkennes  and  unclainnes;    not  only  incon- 

tinencie  betweene  persons  unmaried,  for  which  many  both  men 
&  women  have  been  punished  sharply  enough,  but  some  maried 
persons  allso.  .  .  things  fearful  to  name  have  broak  forth  in  this 
land,  oftener  then  once  .  .  .  one  reason  may  be,  that  ye  Divell 
may  carrie  a  greater  spite  against  the  churches  of  Christ  and 
ye  gospell  hear,  by  how  much  ye  more  they  endeavor  to 
preserve  holynes  and  puritie  amongst  them  .  .  .  that  he  might 
cast  a  blemishe  &  staine  upon  them  in  ye  eyes  of  ye  world, 
who  use  to  be  rashe  in  judgmente. 

Vickery  smiled  sheepishly,  and  Eldon  relieved  him  of 
the  book,  exclaiming: 

"Think  of  it,  those  terribly  protected  people  were  so 
bad  they  could  only  explain  it  by  saying  that  Satan 
worked  overtime!  There  is  one  of  the  most  hideous 
stories  in  here  ever  published  and  you  can  find  facts  that 
make  The  Scarlet  Letter  look  innocent." 

Vickery  protested,  mildly:  "Of  course  the  Puritans 
were  human  and  intolerant.  That's  the  whole  point  of 
my  play,  the  struggle  of  a  man  against  them." 

Eldon  opposed  him  still.  "But  why  should  we  worry 
over  that?  The  Puritans  have  been  pretty  well  whipped 
out.  Liberty  is  pretty  well  secured  for  men  in  America. 
Why  try  to  excite  an  audience  about  what  they  all  are 
as  used  to  as  the  air  they  breathe?  Let  Russia  write 
about  such  things.  Why  not  write  a  play  about  the 
exciting  things  of  our  own  days?  If  you  want  liberty 
for  a  theme,  why  don't  you  write  about  the  fight  the 
women  are  waging  for  freedom?  Turn  your  hero  into 
a  heroine;  turn  your  Puritans  into  conservative  men 
and  women  of  the  day  who  stand  just  where  they  did. 
Show  up  the  modern  home  as  this  book  shows  up  the  old 
Puritans." 

Vickery  was  dazed.  Of  all  the  critical  suggestions  he 

347 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

had  ever  heard,  this  was  the  most  radical,  to  change  tha 
hero  to  a  heroine,  and  vice  versa. 

He  stared  at  Eldon.  "Are  you  in  favor  of  woman 
suffrage,  you,  of  all  men?" 

Eldon  laughed.  "You  might  as  well  ask  me  if  I  am  in 
favor  of  the  coming  winter  or  the  hot  spell  or  the  next 
earthquake.  All  I  know  is  that  my  opposition  wouldn't 
make  the  slightest  difference  to  them  and  that  I  might  as 
well  reconcile  myself  to  them. 

"There's  nothing  on  this  earth  except  death  and  the 
taxes  that's  surer  to  come  than  the  equality  of  women — 
in  the  sense  of  equality  that  men  mean.  The  first  place 
where  women  had  a  chance  was  the  stage;  it's  the  only 
place  now  where  they  are  put  on  the  same  footing  with 
the  men.  They  have,  every  advantage  that  men  have,  and 
earn  as  much  money,  or  more,  and  have  just  as  many 
privileges,  or  more.  The  one  question  asked  is, 'Can  you 
deliver  the  goods?'  That's  the  question  they  ask  of  a 
business  man,  or  painter,  or  sculptor,  or  architect,  or 
soldier.  Private  morals  are  an  important  question,  but  a 
separate  question,  just  as  they  are  with  men. 

"So  the  stage  is  the  right  place  for  freedom  to  be 
preached  by  women,  because  that  is  the  place  where  it  is 
practised.  The  stage  ought  to  lend  its  hand  to  free  others 
because  it  is  free  itself." 

Vickery  was  beginning  to  kindle  with  the  new  idea, 
though  his  kindling  meant  the  destruction  of  the  building 
he  had  worked  on  so  hard.  He  made  one  further  objec 
tion:  "You're  not  seriously  urging  me  to  write  a  suffra 
gette  play,  are  you?" 

"Lord  help  us,  no!"  Eldon  snorted.  "The  suffragette 
is  less  entertaining  on  the  stage  than  the  Puritan,  or  the 
abolitionist,  or  any  fighter  for  a  doctrine.  What  the  stage 
wants  is  the  story  of  individuals,  not  of  parties,  or  sects, 
or  creeds.  Leave  sermons  to  the  pulpits  and  lectures  to 
the  platform.  The  stage  wants  stories.  If  you  can  sneak 
in  a  bit  of  doctrine,  all  right,  but  it  must  be  smuggled. 

348 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Why  don't  you  write  a  play  about  the  tragedy  of  a  woman 
who  has  great  gifts  and  can't  use  them — a  throttled  genius 
like — well,  like  Sheila  Kemble,  for  instance?" 

"Oh,  Sheila!"  Vickery  sighed.  But  the  theme  became 
personal,  concrete,  real  at  once.  He  made  still  a  last 
weak  objection:  "But  I  wrote  this  play  for  you.  I 
wanted  to  see  you  star  in  it." 

Eldon  thought  a  moment,  then  he  said:  "You  write 
the  play  for  the  woman,  and  let  me  play  her  husband. 
Give  her  all  the  fire  you  want,  and  make  me  just  an 
every-day  man  with  a  wife  he  loves  and  admires  and 
wants  to  keep,  and  doesn't  want  to  destroy.  You  do 
that  and  I'll  play  the  husband  and  I'll  give  the  woman 
star  the  fight  of  her  life  to  keep  me  from  running  away 
with  the  piece.  Don't  make  the  husband  brilliant  or 
heroic;  just  a  stupid,  stubborn,  every-day  man,  and  give 
him  the  worst  of  it  everywhere.  That  all  helps  the 
actor.  The  woman  will  be  divine,  the  man  will  be  human. 
And  he'll  get  the  audience — the  women  as  well  as  the 
men." 

Vickery  began  to  see  the  play  forming  on  the  interior 
sky  of  his  skull,  vaguely  yet  vividly  as  clouds  take  shape 
and  gleam.  "If  only  Sheila  could  play  it,"  he  said. 

Eldon  tossed  his  hands  in  despair. 

Vickery  began  to  babble  as  the  plot  spilled  down  into 
his  brain  in  a  cloudburst  of  ideas:  "I  might  take  Sheila 
for  my  theme.  To  disguise  her  decently  she  could  be — 
say —  Let  me  see —  I've  got  it! — a  singer!  Her  voice 
has  thrilled  Co  vent  Garden  and  the  Metropolitan  and  she 
marries  a  nice  man  and  has  some  children  and  sings  'em 
little  cradle-songs.  She  loves  them  and  she  loves  her 
husband,  but  she  is  bursting  with  bigger  song — wild, 
glorious  song.  Shall  she  stick  to  the  nursery  or  shall  she 
leave  her  babies  every  now  and  then  and  give  the  world  a 
chance  to  hear  her?  Her  mother-in-law  and  the  neighbors 
say,  'The  opera  is  immoral,  the  singers  are  immoral,  the 
librettos  are  immoral,  the  managers  are  immoral;  you 

349 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

stay  in  the  nursery,  except  on  Sundays,  and  then  you 
may  sing  in  the  choir.' 

"But  she  remembers  when  she  sang  the  death-love  of 
Isolde  in  the  Metropolitan  with  an  orchestra  of  a  hundred 
trying  in  vain  to  drown  her;  she  remembers  how  .she 
climbed  and  climbed  till  she  was  in  heaven,  and  how  she 
took  five  thousand  people  there  with  her,  and —  Oh,  you 
can  see  it!  It's  Trilby  without  Svengali ;  it's  Trilby  as  a 
mother  and  a  wife.  It's  all  womankind." 

His  thoughts  were  stampeded  with  the  new  excitement. 
He  picked  up  the  play  he  had  loved  so  well  and  worked 
for  so  hard,  and  would  have  tossed  it  into  the  fire  if  El- 
don's  room  had  not  been  heated  by  a  steam-radiator.  He 
flung  it  on  the  floor  with  contempt: 

"That!"  and  he  trampled  it  as  the  critics  would  have 
trampled  it  had  it  been  laid  at  their  feet. 

"What  to  call  my  play?"  he  pondered,  aloud.  "It's 
always  easier  for  me  to  write  the  play  than  select  the 
name."  As  he  screwed  up  his  face  in  thought  a  memory 
came  to  him.  "My  mother  told  me  once  that  when  she 
was  a  little  girl  in  the  West  her  father  wounded  a  wild 
swan  and  brought  it  home.  She  cared  for  it  till  it  got 
well,  then  he  clipped  one  of  its  wings  so  that  it  could 
not  balance  itself  to  fly.  It  grew  tame  and  stayed  about 
the  garden,  but  it  was  always  trying  to  fly. 

"One  day  my  grandfather  noticed  that  the  clipped  wing 
was  growing  out  and  he  sent  a  farm-hand  to  trim  it  down 
again.  The  fellow  didn't  understand  how  birds  fly,  and 
he  clipped  the  long  wing  down  to  the  length  of  the  short 
one.  The-  bird  walked  about,  trying  its  pinions.  It 
found  that,  short  as  they  were,  they  balanced  each  other. 

"She  walked  to  a  high  place  and  suddenly  leaped  off 
into  the  air;  my  mother  saw  her  and  thought  she  would 
fall.  But  her  wings  held  her  up.  They  beat  the  air  and 
she  sailed  away." 

"Did  she  ever  come  back?"  Eldon  asked. 

"  She  never  came  back.  But  she  was  a  bird  and  didn't 

350 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

belong  in  a  garden.  A  woman  would  come  back.  We 
used  to  have  pigeons  at  home.  We  clipped  their  wings  at 
first,  too,  till  they  learned  the  cote.  Then  we  let  them 
free.  You  could  see  them  circling  about  in  the  sky. 
Pigeons  come  back.  I'm  going  to  call  my  play  'Clipped 
Wings.'  How's  that  for  a  title? — 'Clipped  Wings'!" 

Eldon  was  growing  incandescent,  too,  but  he  advised 
caution : 

"Be  easy  on  the  allegory,  boy,  or  you'll  have  only 
allegorical  audiences.  Stick  to  the  real  and  the  real 
people  will  come  to  see  it.  Go  on  and  write  it,  and  don't 
forget  I  play  the  husband;  I  saw  him  first.  Don't  write  a 
lecture,  now;  promise  me  you  won't  preach  or  generalize. 
You  stick  to  your  story  of  those  two  people,  and  let  the 
audience  generalize  on  the  way  home.  And  don't  let 
your  dialogue  sparkle  too  much.  Every-day  people  don't 
talk  epigrams.  Give  them  e very-day  talk.  That's  as 
great  and  twice  as  difficult  as  blank  verse. 

' '  Don't  try  to  sweeten  the  husband.  Let  him  roar  like 
a  bull,  and  everybody  will  understand  and  forgive  him. 
I  tell  you  the  new  wife  has  it  all  her  own  way.  She's 
venturing  out  into  new  fields.  The  new  husband  is  the 
one  I'm  sorry  for. 

"I  hate  Winfield  for  taking  Sheila  off  the  stage,  and  I 
hate  him  for  keeping  her  away.  But  if  I  were  in  his  place 
I'd  do  the  same.  I'd  hate  myself,  but  I'd  keep  her.  The 
more  you  think  of  it,  the  harder  the  husband  job  is. 

"  The  new  husband  of  the  new  woman  is  up  against  the 
biggest  problem  of  the  present  time  and  of  the  future: 
what  are  husbands  going  to  do  about  their  wives'  am 
bitions  ?  What  are  wives  going  to  do  about  their  husbands' 
rights  to  a  home?  Where  do  the  children  come  in?  It 
doesn't  do  the  kids  much  good  to  have  'em  brought  up  in 
a  home  of  discontent  by  a  broken-hearted  mother  raising 
her  daughter  to  go  through  the  same  tragedy.  But  they 
ought  to  have  a  chance. 

"There's  a  new  triangle  in  the  drama.     It's  not  a 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

question  of  a  lover  outside;  the  third  member  is  the  wife's 
ambition.  Go  to  it,  my  boy — and  give  us  the  story." 

Vickery  stumbled  from  the  room  like  a  sleep-walker. 
The  whole  play  was  present  in  his  brain,  as  a  cathedral  in 
the  imagination  of  an  architect. 

When  he  came  to  drawing  the  details  of  the  cathedral, 
and  figuring  out  the  ground-plan,  stresses,  and  strains, 
the  roof  supports,  the  flying  buttresses,  the  cost  of  ma 
terial,  and  all  the  infernally  irreconcilable  details — that 
was  quite  another  thing  yet. 

But  he  plunged  into  it  as  into  a  brier-patch  and  floun 
dered  about  with  a  desperate  enthusiasm.  His  health 
ebbed  from  him  like  ink  from  his  pen.  His  doctor  ordered 
him  to  rest  and  to  travel,  and  he  sought  the  mountains  of 
New  York  for  a  while.  But  he  would  not  stop  work.  His 
theme  dragged  him  along  and  he  hoped  only  that  his  zest 
for  writing  would  not  give  out  before  the  play  was  finished. 
If  afterward  his  life  also  gave  out,  he  would  not  much  care. 

He  had  lost  Sheila,  and  Sheila  had  lost  herself.  If  he 
could  find  his  work,  that  would  be  something  at  least. 


CHAPTER  L 

HTHERE  was  a  certain  birch -tree  on  the  hill  behind 
1  the  old  Winfield  homestead. 

The  house  itself  sat  well  back  in  its  ample  green  lawn, 
left  fenceless  after  the  manner  of  American  village  lawns. 
In  the  rear  of  the  house  there  were  many  acres  of  gardens 
and  pasture  where  cattle  stood  about,  looking  in  the  dis 
tance  like  toy  cows  out  of  a  Noah's  Ark. 

Beyond  the  pasture  was  the  steep  hill  they  flattered 
with  the  name  of  "the  mountain."  To  the  children  it 
furnished  an  unfailing  supply  of  Indians,  replenished  as 
fast  as  they  were  slaughtered. 

Every  now  and  then  Sheila  had  to  be  captured  and  tied 
to  a  tree  and  danced  around  by  little  Polly  and  young 
Bret  and  their  friends,  bedecked  with  feathers  from  dis 
mantled  dusters,  brandishing  "tommyhawks"  and  shoot 
ing  with  "bonarrers." 

Just  as  the  terrified  pale-face  squaw  was  about  to  be 
given  over  to  the  torture  the  Indians  would  disappear, 
take  off  their  feathers,  rub  the  war  mud  off  their  noses, 
and  lay  aside  their  barbarous  weapons;  then  arming 
themselves  with  wooden  guns,  they  would  charge  to 
Sheila's  rescue,  fearlessly  annihilating  the  wraiths  of  their 
late  selves. 

One  day  when  Sheila  was  bound  to  the  tree  she  saw  Bret 
stealing  up  to  watch  the  game.  He  waved  gaily  to  her 
and  she  nodded  to  him.  Then  the  whim  came  to  her  to 
cease  burlesquing  the  familiar  role  and  play  it  for  all  it 
was  worth.  She  imagined  herself  really  one  of  those 
countless  women  whom  the  Indians  captured  and  sub- 

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CLIPPED   WINGS 

jected  to  torment.  Perhaps  some  woman,  the  wife  of  a 
pioneer,  had  once  met  her  hideous  doom  in  this  same 
forest.  She  fancied  she  saw  her  house  in  flames  and  Bret 
shot  dead  as  he  fought  toward  her.  She  writhed  and 
tugged  at  the  imaginary  and  unyielding  thongs.  She 
pleaded  for  mercy  in  babbling  hysteria,  and  for  a  climax 
sent  forth  one  sincere  scream  of  awful  terror.  If  Dorothy's 
mother  had  heard  it  she  would  have  remembered  the 
shriek  of  the  little  Ophelia. 

Sheila  noted  that  the  redskins  were  silent.  She  looked 
about  her  through  eyes  streaming  with  fictional  tears. 
She  saw  that  Bret  was  plunging  toward  her,  ashen  with 
alarm.  The  neighbors'  children  were  aghast  and  her  own 
boy  and  girl  petrified.  Then  Polly  and  young  Bret  flung 
themselves  on  her  in  a  frenzy  of  weeping  sympathy. 

Sheila  began  to  laugh  and  Bret  looked  foolish.  He 
explained: 

"I  thought  a  snake  was  coiled  round  you.  Don't  do 
that  again,  in  Heaven's  name."  That  night  he  dreamed 
of  her  cry. 

It  was  a  long  while  before  Sheila  could  comfort  her 
children  and  convince  them  that  it  was  all  "pretend." 

After  that,  when  they  were  incorrigible,  she  could  always 
cow  them  by  threatening,  "If  you  don't  I'll  scream." 

The  children  would  have  been  glad  to  make  little  canoes 
from  the  bark  of  the  birch,  but  Sheila  would  not  let  them 
peel  off  the  delicate  human-like  skin.  The  tree  meant 
much  to  her,  for  she  and  Bret  had  been  wont  to  climb 
up  to  it  before  there  were  any  amateur  Indians.  Bret 
had  carved  their  names  on  it  in  two  linked  hearts. 

On  the  lawn  in  front  of  the  house  there  was  another 
birch-tree.  It  amused  Bret  to  name  the  tree  on  the  hill 
"Sheila"  and  the  tree  on  the  lawn  "Bret."  And  the 
nearest  approach  he  ever  made  to  poetry  was  to  pretend 
that  they  were  longing  for  each  other.  He  probably  ab 
sorbed  that  idea  from  the  dimly  remembered  lyric  of  the 
pine-tree  and  the  palm. 

354 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Sheila  suggested  that  the  birch  from  the  lawn  should 
climb  up  and  dwell  with  the  lonely  tree  on  the  heights. 
Bret  objected  that  he  and  Sheila  would  never  see  them 
then,  for  they  made  few  such  excursions  nowadays. 

It -struck  him  as  a  better  idea  to  bring  "Sheila"  down 
to  "Bret."  He  decided  to  surprise  his  wife  with  the  view 
of  them  together.  He  chose  a  day  when  Sheila  was  to 
take  the  children  to  a  Sunday-school  picnic.  On  his  way 
to  the  office  he  spoke  to  the  old  German  gardener  he  had 
inherited  from  his  father.  When  Bret  told  him  of  his 
inspiration  the  old  man  (Gottlieb  Hauf,  his  name  was) 
shook  his  head  and  crinkled  his  thin  lips  with  the  superior 
ity  of  learning  for  ignorance.  He  drawled: 

"You  shouldn't  do  so,"  and,  as  if  the  matter  were 
ended,  bent  to  snip  a  shrub  he  was  manicuring. 

"But  I  want  it,"  Bret  insisted. 

"You  shouldn't  vant  it,"  and  snipped  again. 

Opposition  always  hardened  Bret.  He  took  the  shears 
from  the  old  man  and  stood  him  up.  "You  do  as  I  tell 
you — for  once." 

Gottlieb  could  be  stubborn,  too.  "Und  I  tell  you  die 
Birke  don't  vant  it.  She  don't  like  it  down  here." 

"The  other  birch-tree  is  flourishing  down  here." 

"Dot  makes  nuttink  out.  Die  Birke  up  dere  she  like 
vere  she  is.  She  like  plenty  sun." 

"This  one  grows  in  the  shade." 

"Diese  Birke  don't  know  nuttink  about  sun.  She 
alvays  grows  im  Schatten." 

"Well,  the  other  one  would  like  the  shade  if  it  had  a 
chance.  You  bring  it  down  here." 

The  old  man  shook  his  head  stubbornly  and  reached 
for  the  shears. 

Bret  was  determined  to  have  his  own  way.  "Is  it  my 
tree  or  yours?" 

"She  is  your  tree — but  she  don't  like.  You  move  her, 
she  dies." 

"Bosh!    You  do  as  you're  told." 

355 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

' '  All  right.     I  move  her. " 

"To-day?" 

"Next  vinter." 

"Now!" 

"  Um  Gotteswillen!  She  dies  sure.  Next  vinter  or  early 
sprink,  maybe  she  has  a  chence,  but  to  move  her  in 
summer — no!" 

"Yes!" 

"Nein  dock!" 

Bret  choked  with  rage.  "You  move  that  tree  to-day 
or  you  move  yourself  out  of  here." 

Gottlieb  hesitated  for  a  long  while,  but  he  felt  that  he 
was  too  old  to  be  transplanted.  Besides,  that  tree  up 
there  was  none  of  his  own  children.  He  consented  with 
as  bad  grace  as  possible.  He  moved  the  tree,  grumbling, 
and  doing  his  best  for  the  poor  thing.  He  took  as  large 
a  ball  of  earth  with  the  roots  as  he  could  manage,  but 
he  had  to  sever  unnumbered  tiny  shoots,  and  the  voyage 
down  the  mountain  filled  him  with  misgivings. 

When  Bret  came  home  that  night  the  two  trees  stood 
close  together  like  Adam  and  Eve  whitely  saluting  the 
sunset.  Over  them  a  great  tulip-tree  towered  a  hundred 
feet  in  air,  and  all  aglow  with  its  flowers  like  a  titanic 
bridal  bouquet.  When  the  bedraggled  Sheila  came  back 
with  the  played-out  children  she  was  immeasurably 
pleased  with  the  thoughtfulness  of  the  surprise. 

The  next  morning  Bret  called  her  to  the  window  to  see 
how  her  namesake  laughed  with  all  her  leaves  in  the  early 
light.  The  two  trees  seemed  to  laugh  together.  "It's 
their  honeymoon,"  he  said.  When  he  left  the  house  old 
Gottlieb  was  shaking  his  head  over  the  spectacle.  Bret 
triumphantly  curled  him  on  the  shoulder.  "You  see!  I 
told  you  it  would  be  all  right." 

"  Vait  once,"  said  Gottlieb. 

A  few  days  before  this  Dorothy  had  called  on  Sheila 
to  say  that  the  church  was  getting  up  an  open-air  festival, 

356 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

a  farewell  to  the  congregation  about  to  disperse  for  the 
summer.     They  wanted  to  borrow  the  Winfield  lawn. 

Sheila  consented  freely.  Also,  they  wanted  to  give  a 
kind  of  masque.  Masques  were  coming  back  into  fashion 
and  Vickery  had  consented  to  toss  off  a  little  fantasy, 
mainly  about  children  and  fairies,  with  one  or  two  grown 
ups  to  hold  them  together. 

Sheila  thought  it  an  excellent  idea. 

Also,  they  wanted  Sheila  to  play  the  principal  part, 
the  mother  of  the  children. 

Sheila  declined  with  the  greatest  cordiality. 

Dorothy  pleaded.  Sheila  was  adamant.  She  would 
work  her  head  off  and  direct  the  rehearsals,  she  said,  but 
she  was  a  reformed  actress  who  would  not  backslide  even 
for  the  church. 

Other  members  of  the  committee  and  even  the  old  parson 
begged  Sheila  to  recant,  but  she  beamed  and  refused. 
Rehearsals  began  with  Dorothy  as  the  mother  and  Jim's 
sister  Mayme  as  the  fairy  queen.  Sheila's  children  and 
Dorothy's  and  a  mob  of  others  made  up  the  rest  of  the 
cast,  human  and  elfin. 

Sheila  worked  hard,  but  her  material  was  unpromising — 
all  except  her  own  daughter,  whom  she  had  named  after 
Bret's  mother  and  whom  she  called  "Polly"  after  her  own. 
Little  Polly  displayed  a  strange  sincerity,  a  trace  of  the 
Kemble  genius  for  pretending. 

When  Vickery,  who  came  down  to  see  his  work  pro 
duced  and  saw  little  Polly,  it  was  like  seeing  again  the 
little  Sheila  whom  he  still  remembered. 

He  told  big  Sheila  of  it,  and  her  eyes  grew  humid  with 
tenderness. 

He  said,  "I  wrote  my  first  play  for  you — and  I'd  be 
willing  to  write  my  last  for  you  now  if  you'd  act  in  it." 

Sheila  blessed  him  for  it  as  if  it  were  a  beautiful  obituary 
for  her  dead  self.  He  did  not  tell  her  that  he  was  writing 
her  into  his  masterpiece,  that  she  was  posing  for  him  even 
now. 

357 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

On  the  morning  of  the  performance  Miss  Mayme  Greeley 
woke  up  with  an  attack  of  hay-fever  in  full  bloom.  The 
June  flowers  had  filled  her  with  a  kind  of  powder  that  went 
off  like  intermittent  skyrockets.  She  began  to  pack  her 
trunk  for  immediate  flight  to  a  pollenless  clime.  It 
looked  as  if  she  were  trying  to  sneeze  her  head  into  her 
trunk.  There  was  no  possibility  of  her  playing  the  fairy 
queen  when  her  every  other  word  was  ker-choo ! 

Sheila  saw  it  coming.  Before  the  committee  approached 
her  like  a  press-gang  she  knew  that  she  was  drafted.  She 
knew  the  role  from  having  rehearsed  it.  Mayme's  cos 
tume  would  fit  her,  and  if  she  did  not  jump  into  the  gap 
the  whole  affair  would  have  to  be  put  off. 

These  were  not  the  least  of  the  sarcasms  fate  was  lavish 
ing  on  her  that  her  wicked  past  as  an  actress,  which  had 
kept  her  under  suspicion  so  long,  should  be  the  means  of 
bringing  the  village  to  her  feet;  that  the  church  should 
drive  her  back  on  the  stage;  that  the  stage  should  be  a 
plot  of  grass,  that  her  own  children  should  play  the  leading 
parts,  and  she  be  cast  for  a  "bit"  in  their  support. 

Thus  it  was  that  Sheila  returned  to  the  drama,  shang 
haied  as  a  reluctant  understudy.  The  news  of  the  posi 
tive  appearance  of  the  great  Mrs.  Winfield — "Sheila 
Kemble  as  was,  the  famous  star,  you  know" — drew  the 
whole  town  to  the  Winfield  lawn. 

The  stage  was  a  level  of  sward  in  front  of  the  two 
birches,  with  rhododendron-bushes  for  wings.  The  au 
dience  filled  the  terraces,  the  porches,  and  even  the  sur 
rounding  trees. 

The  masque  was  an  unimportant  improvisation  that 
Vickery  had  jingled  off  in  hours  of  rest  from  the  labor  of 
his  big  play,  "Clipped  Wings." 

But  it  gained  a  mysterious  charm  from  the  setting. 
People  were  so  used  to  seeing  plays  in  artificial  light  among 
flat,  hand-painted  trees  with  leaves  pasted  on  visible  fish 
nets,  that  actual  sunlight,  genuine  grass,  and  trees  in  three 
dimensions  seemed  poetically  unreal  and  unknown. 

358 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

The  plot  of  the  masque  was  not  revolutionary. 

Dorothy  played  a  mother  who  quieted  her  four  clamor 
ing  children  with  fairy-stories  at  bedtime;  then  they 
dreamed  that  a  fairy  queen  visited  them  and  transported 
them  magically  in  their  beds  to  fairyland. 

At  the  height  of  the  revel  a  rooster  cock-a-doodle-did, 
the  fairies  scampered  home,  the  children  woke  up  to  find 
themselves  out  in  the  woods  in  their  nighties,  and  they 
skedaddled.  Curtain. 

The  magic  transformation  scene  did  not  work,  of  course. 
The  ropes  caught  in  the  trees  and  Bret's  chauffeur  and 
Gottlieb  Hauf  had  to  get  a  stepladder  and  fuss  about, 
while  the  sleeping  children  sat  up  and  the  premature 
fairies  peeked  and  snickered.  Then  the  play  went  on. 

Bret  watched  the  performance  with  the  indulgent  con 
tempt  one  feels  for  his  unprofessional  friends  when  they 
try  to  act.  It  puzzled  him  to  see  how  .bad  Dorothy  was. 

All  she  had  to  do  was  to  gather  her  family  about  her 
and  talk  them  to  sleep.  Sheila  had  reminded  her  of  this 
and  pleaded: 

"Just  play  yourself,  my  dear." 

But  Dorothy  had  been  as  awkward  and  incorrigible  as 
an  overgrown  girl. 

To  the  layman  it  would  seem  the  simplest  task  on  earth 
— to  play  oneself.  The  acting  trade  knows  it  to  be  the 
most  complex,  the  last  height  the  actor  attains,  if  he  ever 
attains  it  at  all. 

Bret  watched  Dorothy  in  amazement.  He  was  too 
polite  to  say  what  he  thought,  since  Jim  Greeley  was  at 
his  elbow.  Jim  was  not  so  polite.  He  spoke  for  Bret 
when  he  groaned: 

"Gee  whiz !  What's  the  matter  with  that  wife  of  mine ? 
She's  put  her  kids  to  bed  a  thousand  times  and  yet  you'd 
swear  she  never  saw  a  child  in  her  life  before.  You'd 
swear  nobody  else  ever  did.  O  Lord!  Whew!  I'll  get  a 
divorce  in  the  morning." 

The  neighbors  hushed  him  and  protested  with  compli- 

359 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

merits  as  badly  read  and  unconvincing  as  Dorothy's  own 
lines.  At  last  Sheila  came  on,  in  the  fairy-queen  robes. 
Everybody  knew  that  she  was  Mrs.  Winfield,  and  that 
there  were  no  fairies,  at  least  in  Blithevale,  nowadays. 

Yet  somehow  for  the  nonce  one  fairy  at  least  was  al 
together  undeniable  and  natural  and  real.  The  human 
mother  putting  her  chicks  to  bed  was  the  unheard-of,  the 
unbelievable  fantasm.  Sheila  was  convincing  beyond 
skepticism. 

At  the  first  slow  circle  of  her  wand,  and  the  first  sound 
of  her  easy,  colloquial,  yet  poetic  speech,  there  was  a 
hush  and,  in  one  heart-throb,  a  sudden  belief  that  such 
things  must  be  true,  because  they  were  too  beautiful  not 
to  be;  they  were  infinitely  lovely  beyond  the  cruelty  of 
denial  or  the  folly  of  resistance. 

Bret's  heart  began  to  race  with  pride,  then  to  thud 
heavily.  First  was  the  response  to  her  beauty,  her  charm, 
her  triumph  with  the  neighbors  who  had  whispered  him 
down  because  he  had  married  an  actress.  Then  came  the 
strangling  clutch  of  remorse :  What  right  had  he  to  cabin 
and  confine  that  bright  spirit  in  the  little  cell  of  his  life? 
Would  she  not  vanish  from  his  home  as  she  vanished  from 
the  scene?  Actually,  she  merely  walked  between  the 
rhododendron-bushes,  but  it  had  the  effect  of  a  mystic 
escape. 

There  was  great  laughter  when  the  children  woke  up 
and  scooted  across  the  lawn  in  their  bed-gear,  but  the 
sensation  was  Sheila's.  Her  ovation  was  overwhelming. 
The  women  of  the  audience  fairly  attacked  Bret  with  con 
gratulations.  They  groaned,  shouted,  and  squealed  at 
him: 

" Oh,  your  wife  was  wonderful !  wonderful!  woNderful! 
You  must  be  so  PROUD  of  her!" 

He  accepted  her  tributes  with  a  guilty  feeling  of  em 
bezzlement,  a  feeling  that  the  prouder  he  was  of  her  the 
more  ashamed  he  should  be  of  himself. 

He  studied  her  from  a  distance  as  she  took  her  homage 

360 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

in  shy  simplicity.  She  was  happy  with  a  certain  happi 
ness  he  had  not  seen  on  her  face  since  he  last  saw  her 
taking  her  last  curtain  calls  in  a  theater. 

Sheila  was  so  happy  that  she  was  afraid  that  her  joy 
would  bubble  out  of  her  in  disgraceful  childishness. 
With  her  first  entrance  on  the  grassy  "boards"  she  had 
felt  again  the  sense  of  an  audience  in  sympathy  and  in 
subjection,  the  strange  clasp  of  hands  across  the  footlights, 
even  though  there  were  no  footlights.  It  was  a  double 
triumph  because  the  audience  was  Philistine  and  little 
accustomed  to  the  theater.  But  she  could  feel  the  pulse 
of  all  those  neighbors  as  if  they  had  but  one  wrist  and 
she  held  that  under  her  fingers,  counting  the  leap  and 
check  of  their  one  heart  and  making  it  beat  as  she  willed. 

The  ecstasy  of  her  power  was  closely  akin,  in  so  different 
a  way,  to  what  Samson  felt  when  the  Philistines  that 
had  rendered  him  helpless  called  him  from  the  prison 
where  he  did  grind,  to  make  them  sport: 

"He  said  unto  the  lad  that  held  him  by  the  hand, 
Suffer  me  that  I  may  feel  the  pillars  whereupon  the  house 
standeth  that  I  may  lean  upon  them."  As  he  felt  his 
strength  rejoicing  again  in  his  sinews,  he  prayed, 
"Strengthen  me  only  this  once,  O  God,  that  I  may  be 
avenged  of  the  Philistines  for  my  two  eyes." 

Nobody  could  be  less  like  Samson  than  Sheila,  yet  in 
her  capacity  she  knew  what  it  was  to  have  her  early 
powers  once  more  restored  to  her.  And  she  bowed  her 
self  with  all  her  might — "And  the  house  fell." 

An  almost  inconceivable  joy  rewarded  Sheila  till  the 
final  spectator  had  italicized  the  last  compliment.  Then, 
just  as  Samson  was  caught  under  his  own  triumph,  so 
Sheila  went  down  suddenly  under  the  ruination  of  her 
brief  victory. 

She  was  never  to  act  again!  She  was  never  to  act 
again ! 

When  Bret  came  slowly  to  her,  the  last  of  her  audience, 
she  read  in  his  eyes  just  what  he  felt,  and  he  read  in  her 
24  361 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

eyes  just  what  she  felt.     They  wrung  hands  in  mutual 
adoration  and  mutual  torment.     But  all  they  said  was: 

"You  were  never  so  beautiful!  You  never  acted  so 
well!"  and  "If  you  liked  me,  that's  all  I  want." 

The  next  morning  Bret  woke  to  a  new  and  busy  day 
after  a  night  of  perfect  oblivion.  Sheila  did  not  get  up, 
as  her  new  habit  was,  but  she  reverted  to  type.  She  said 
that  she  had  not  slept  and  Bret  urged  her  to  stay  where 
she  was  till  she  was  rested. 

Later,  as  he  was  knotting  his  tie,  he  glanced  from  the 
window  as  usual  at  the  birches  whose  wedding  he  was 
so  proud  of.  His  hands  paused  at  his  throat  and  his 
fingers  stiffened.  He  called,  "Sheila!  Sheila!  Come 
look!" 

He  forgot  that  she  had  not  risen  with  him.  She  lifted 
herself  heavily  from  her  pillow  and  came  slowly  to  his 
side.  She  brushed  back  her  heavy  hair  from  her  heavy 
eyes  and  said,  "What  is  it?" 

"  Look  at  the  difference  in  the  birches.  '  Bret '  is  bright 
and  fine  and  every  leaf  is  shining.  But  look  at  '  Sheila ' ! " 

The  Sheila  tree  seemed  to  have  died  in  the  night.  The 
leaves  drooped,  shriveled,  turning  their  dull  sides  out 
ward  on  the  black  branches.  The  wind,  that  made  the 
other  tree  glisten  like  breeze-shaken  water,  sent  only  a 
mournful  shudder  through  her  listless  foliage. 


CHAPTER  LI 

BRET  turned  with  anxious,  almost  with  superstitious 
query  to  Sheila.     He  found  her  wan  and  tremulous 
and  weirdly  aged.     He  cried  out:    "Sheila!    What's  the 
matter?    You're  ill!" 

She  tried  to  smile  away  his  fears:  "I  had  a  bad  night. 
I'm  all  right." 

But  she  leaned  on  him,  and  when  he  led  her  back  to 
bed  she  fell  into  her  place  like  a  broken  tree.  She  was 
stricken  with  a  chill  and  he  bundled  the  covers  about  her, 
spread  the  extra  blankets  over  her,  and  held  her  in  his 
arms,  but  the  lips  he  kissed  shivered  and  were  gray. 

He  was  in  a  panic  and  begged  her  to  let  him  send  for  the 
doctor,  but  she  reiterated  through  her  chattering  teeth 
that  she  was  "all  right."  When  he  offered  to  stay  home 
from  the  office  she  ridiculed  his  fears  and  insisted  that  all 
she  needed  was  sleep. 

He  left  her  anxiously,  and  came  home  to  luncheon  earlier 
than  usual.  He  did  not  find  Sheila  on  the  steps  to  greet 
him.  She  was  not  in  the  hall.  He  asked  little  Polly 
where  her  mother  was,  and  she  said: 

"Mamma's  sick.     She's  been  crying  all  day." 

"No,  I  haven't,"  said  Sheila;   "I'm  all  right." 

She  was  coming  down  the  stairs;  she  was  bravely 
dressed  and  smiling  bravely,  but  she  depended  on  the 
banister,  and  she  almost  toppled  into  Bret's  arms. 

He  kissed  her  with  terror,  demanding:  "What's  the 
matter,  honey?  Please,  please  tell  me  what's  the  matter." 

But  she  repeated  her  old  refrain:  "Why,  I'm  all  right, 
honey!  I'm  perfectly  all  right !" 

363 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

But  she  was  not.  She  was  broken  in  spirit  and  her 
nerves  were  in  shreds. 

Though  she  sat  in  her  place  at  table,  Bret  saw  that 
she  was  only  pretending  to  eat.  Dinner  was  the  same 
story.  And  there  was  another  bad  night  and  a  haggard 
morning. 

Bret  sent  for  the  doctor  in  spite  of  her.  He  found 
only  a  general  constitutional  depression,  or,  as  Bret  put 
it,  "Nothing  is  wrong  except  everything." 

A  week  or  two  of  the  usual  efforts  with  tonics  brought 
no  improvement.  Meanwhile  the  doctor  had  asked  a  good 
many  questions.  It  struck  him  at  last  that  Sheila  was 
suffering  from  the  increasingly  common  malady  of  too 
much  nervous  energy  with  no  work  to  expend  it  on.  She 
must  get  herself  interested  in  something.  Perhaps  a 
change  would  be  good,  a  long  voyage.  Bret  urged  a  trip 
abroad.  He  would  leave  the  factory  and  go  with  her. 
Sheila  did  not  want  to  travel,  and  she  reminded  him  of 
the  vital  importance  of  his  business  duties.  He  admitted 
the  truth  of  this  and  offered  to  let  her  go  without  him. 
She  refused. 

The  doctor  advised  her  to  take  up  some  active  occupa 
tion.  Bret  suggested  water-colors,  authorship,  pottery, 
piano-playing,  the  harp,  vocal  lessons — Sheila  had  an 
ear  for  music  and  sang  very  well,  for  one  who  did  not  sing. 
Sheila  waved  the  suggestions  aside  one  by  one. 

Bret  and  the  doctor  hinted  at  charity  work.  It  is 
necessary  to  confess  that  the  idea  did  not  fascinate  Sheila. 
She  had  the  actor's  instinct  and  plenteous  sympathy,  and 
had  .always  been  ready  to  give  herself  gratis  to  those 
benefit  performances  with  which  theatrical  people  are  so 
generous,  and  whose  charity  should  cover  a  multitude  of 
their  sins.  But  charity  as  a  job!  Sheila  did  not  feel 
that  going  about  among  the  sick  and  poverty  stricken 
people  would  cheer  her  up  especially. 

The  doctor  as  his  last  resort  suggested  a  hobby  of  his 
own — he  suggested  that  Sheila  take  up  the  art  of  hamtner- 

364 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

ing  brass.     He  had  found  that  it  worked  wonders  with 
some  of  his  patients. 

Sheila,  not  knowing  that  it  was  the  doctor's  favorite  vice 
and  that  his  home  was  full  of  it,  protested:  "Hammered 
brass!  But  where  would  I  hide  it  when  I  finished  it? 
No,  thank  you!" 

She  said  the  same  to  every  other  proposal.  You  can 
lead  a  woman  to  an  industry,  but  you  cannot  make  her 
take  it  up.  Still  Bret  agreed  with  the  doctor  that  idleness 
was  Sheila's  chief  ailment.  There  was  an  abundance  of 
things  to  do  in  the  world,  but  Sheila  did  not  want  to  do 
them.  They  were  not  to  her  nature.  Forcing  them  on 
her  was  like  offering  a  banquet  to  a  fish.  Sheila  needed 
only  to  be  put  back  in  the  water ;  then  she  would  provide 
her  own  banquet. 

Bret  gave  up  trying  to  find  occupations  for  her.  The 
summer  did  not  retrieve  her  strength  as  he  hoped.  She 
tired  of  beaches  and  mountains  and  family  visitations. 

In  Bret's  baffled  anxiety  he  thought  perhaps  it  was  him 
self  she  was  so  sick  of;  that  love  had  decayed.  But  Sheila 
kept  refuting  this  theory  by  her  tempests  of  devotion. 

He  knew  better  than  the  doctor  did,  better  than  he 
would  admit  to  himself,  what  was  the  matter  with  her. 
She  wanted  to  go  on  the  stage,  and  he  could  not  bear  the 
thought  of  it.  Neither  could  he  bear  the  thought  of  her 
melancholia. 

If  Sheila  had  stormed,  complained,  demanded  her  free 
dom  he  could  have  put  up  a  first-class  battle.  But  he 
could  not  fight  the  poor,  meek  sweetheart  whose  only 
defense  was  the  terrible  weapon  of  reticence,  any  more  than 
he  could  fight  the  birch-tree  that  he  had  brought  from  its 
native  soil. 

The  Sheila  tree  made  a  hard  struggle  for  existence,  but 
it  grew  shabbier  and  sicker,  while  the  Bret  tree,  flourishing 
and  growing,  offered  her  every  encouragement  to  prosper 
where  she  was.  But  she  could  not  prosper. 

One  evening  when  Bret  came  home,  nagged  out  with 

365 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

factory  annoyances,  he  saw  old  Gottlieb  patting  the  trunk 
of  the  Sheila  tree  and  shaking  his  head  over  it.  Bret 
went  to  him  and  asked  if  there  were  any  hope. 

There  were  tears  in  Gottlieb's  eyes.  He  scraped  them 
off  with  his  wrist-bone  and  sighed : 

"Die  arme  schone  Birke.  Ain't  I  told  you  she  don't 
like?  She  goink  die.  She  goink  die." 

"Take  her  back  to  the  sunlight,  then,"  said  Bret. 

But  Gottlieb  shook  his  head.  "Jetzt  ist's  all  zu  spat. 
She  goink  die." 

Bret  hurried  on  to  the  house,  carrying  a  load  of  guilt. 
Sheila  was  lying  on  a  chair  on  the  piazza.  She  did  not 
rise  and  run  to  him.  Just  to  lift  her  hand  to  his  seemed 
to  be  all  that  she  could  achieve.  When  he  dropped  to 
his  knee  and  embraced  her  she  seemed  uncannily  frail. 

The  servant  announcing  dinner  found  him  there. 

Bret  said  to  Sheila,  "Shall  I  carry  you  in?" 

She  declined  the  ride  and  the  dinner. 

Bret  urged,  "But  you  didn't  eat  anything  for  lunch." 

"  Didn't  I  ?    Well,  no  matter." 

He  stared  at  her,  and  Gottlieb's  words  came  back  to 
him.  The  two  Sheilas  would  perish  together.  He  had 
taken  them  both  from  the  soil  where  they  had  first  taken 
root.  Neither  of  them  could  adapt  herself  to  the  new 
soil.  It  was  too  late  to  restore  the  birch  to  its  old  home. 
Was  it  too  late  to  save  Sheila? 

He  would  not  trust  the  Blithevale  fogies  longer.  She 
should  have  the  best  physician  on  earth.  If  he  were  in 
New  York,  well  and  good;  if  he  lived  in  Europe,  they 
would  hunt  him  down.  Craftily  he  said  to  Sheila: 

"How  would  you  like  to  take  a  little  jaunt  to  New 
York?" 

"No,  thanks." 

"With  me.     I've  got  to  go." 

"I'm  sorry  I  can't;  but  it  will  be  a  change  for  you." 

"I'll  be  lonely  without  you." 

"Not  in  New  York,"  she  laughed. 

366 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"In  heaven,"  he  said,  and  the  extravagance  pleased  her. 
He  took  courage  from  her  smile  and  pleaded:  "Come 
along.  You  can  buy  a  raft  of  new  clothes." 

She  shook  her  head  even  at  that ! 

"You  could  see  a  lot  of  new  plays." 

This  seemed  to  waken  the  first  hint  of  appetite.  She 
whispered,  "All  right;  I'll  go." 


CHAPTER  LII 

T^ARIS  fashions  rarely  get  a  good  word  from  men  or 
1  a  bad  word  from  women.  The  satirists  and  the 
clergy  and  native  dressmakers  who  do  not  import  have 
delivered  tirades  in  all  languages  against  them  for  cen 
turies.  They  are  still  giving  delight  and  refreshment 
from  the  harems  on  the  Bosporus  to  the  cottages  on  the 
Pacific  and  the  rest  of  the  way  around  the  world. 

The  doctors  have  not  seemed  to  recognize  their  medicinal 
value.  They  recommend  equally  or  even  more  expensive 
changes  of  occupation  or  of  climate  which  work  a  gradual 
improvement  at  best  in  the  condition  of  a  failing  woman. 

But  for  instant  tonic  and  restorative  virtue  there  is 
nothing  to  match  the  external  application  of  a  fresh  Paris 
gown.  For  mild  attacks  a  Paris  hat  may  work,  and  where 
only  domestic  wares  are  obtainable  they  sometimes  help, 
if  fresh.  For  desperate  cases  both  hat  and  gown  are 
indicated. 

Mustard  plasters,  electric  shocks,  strychnia,  and  other 
remedies  have  nothing  like  the  same  potency.  The  effect 
is  instantaneous,  and  the  patient  is  not  only  brought 
back  to  life,  but  stimulated  to  exert  herself  to  live  up  to 
the  gown.  Husbands  or  guardians  should  be  excluded 
during  the  treatment,  as  the  reaction  of  Paris  gowns  on 
male  relatives  is  apt  to  cause  prostration.  There  need 
be  no  fear,  however,  of  overdosing  women  patients. 

As  a  final  test  of  mortality,  the  Paris  gown  has  been 
strangely  overlooked.  Holding  mirrors  before  the  lips, 
lifting  the  hands  to  the  light,  and  like  methods  some 
times  fail  of  certainty.  If,  however,  a  Paris  gown  be 

368 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

held  in  front  of  the  woman  in  question,  and  the  words 
"Here  is  the  very  newest  thing  from  Paris  just  smuggled 
in  "  be  spoken  in  a  loud  voice,  and  no  sign  of  an  effort  to 
sit  up  is  made,  she  is  dead,  and  no  doubt  of  it. 

Bret  had  decoyed  Sheila  to  New  York  with  an  elaborate 
story  of  having  to  go  on  business  and  hating  to  go  alone. 
When  they  arrived  she  was  so  weak  that  Bret  wanted  to 
send  a  red-cap  for  a  wheeled  chair  to  carry  her  from  the 
train  to  the  taxicab.  Her  pride  refused,  but  her  strength 
barely  sufficed  the  distance. 

Bret  chose  the  Plaza  for  their  hotel,  since  it  required 
a  ride  up  Fifth  Avenue.  His  choice  was  justified  by  the 
interest  Sheila  displayed  in  the  shop  windows.  She  tried 
to  see  both  sides  of  the  street  at  once. 

She  was  as  excited  as  a  child  at  Coney  Island.  She 
astounded  Bret  by  gifts  of  observation  that  would  have 
appalled  an  Indian  scout. 

After  one  fleeting  glance  at  a  window  full  of  gowns  she 
could  describe  each  of  them  with  a  wealth  of  detail  that 
dazzled  him  and  a  technical  terminology  that  left  him  in 
perfect  ignorance. 

At  the  hotel  she  displayed  unsuspected  vigor.  She 
needed  little  persuasion  to  spend  the  afternoon  shopping. 
He  was  afraid  that  she  might  faint  if  she  went  alone,  and 
he  insisted  that  his  own  appointments  were  for  the  next 
day. 

He  followed  her  on  a  long  scout  through  a  tropical 
jungle  of  dressmakers'  shops  more  brilliant  than  an  or 
chid  forest.  Sheila  clapped  her  hands  in  ecstasy  after 
ecstasy.  She  insisted  on  trying  things  on  and  did  not 
waver  when  she  had  to  stand  for  long  periods  while  the 
fitters  fluttered  about  her.  She  promenaded  and  preened 
like  a  bird-of-paradise  at  the  mating  season.  She  was 
again  the  responsive,  jocund  Sheila  of  their  own  seaside 
mating  period. 

She  found  one  audacious  gown  and  a  more  audacious 
hat  that  suited  her  and  each  other  without  alterations. 

369 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

And  since  Bret  urged  it,  she  let  him  buy  them  for  her 
to  wear  that  night  at  the  theater.  She  made  appoint 
ments  for  further  fittings  next  day. 

On  the  way  to  the  hotel  she  tried  to  be  sober  long 
enough  to  reproach  herself  for  her  various  expenditures, 
but  Bret  said: 

"I'd  mortgage  the  factory  to  the  hilt  for  anything  that 
would  bring  back  that  look  to  your  face — and  keep  it 
there." 

At  the  hotel  they  discussed  what  play  they  should  see. 
The  ticket  agent  advised  the  newest  success,  "Twilight," 
but  Sheila  knew  that  Floyd  Eldon  was  featured  in  the  cast 
and  she  did  not  want  to  cause  Bret  any  discomfort. 
She  voted  for  "Breakers  Ahead"  at  the  Odeon,  though 
she  knew  that  Dulcie  Ormerod  was  in  it.  Dulcie  was 
now  established  on  Broadway,  to  the  delight  of  the  large 
rural-minded  element  that  exists  in  every  city. 

Bret  bought  a  box  for  the  sake  of  the  new  gown.  It 
took  Sheila  an  age  to  get  into  it  after  dinner,  but  Bret 
told  her  it  was  time  well  spent.  When  they  reached  the 
theater  the  first  act  was  well  along,  and  in  the  otherwise 
deserted  lobby  Reben  was  talking  to  Starr  Coleman  con 
cerning  a  learned  interview  he  was  writing  for  Dulcie. 

Both  stared  at  the  sumptuous  Delilah  floating  in  at 
the  side  of  Bret  Winfield.  They  did  not  recognize  either 
Bret  or  Sheila  till  Sheila  was  almost  past  them.  Then 
they  leaped  to  attention  and  called  her  by  name. 

All  four  exchanged  greetings  with  cordiality.  Time  had 
blurred  the  old  grudges.  The  admiration  in  the  eyes  of 
both  Reben  and  Coleman  reassured  Sheila  more  than  all 
the  compliments  they  lavished. 

Reben  ended  a  speech  of  Oriental  floweriness  with  a 
gracious  implication:  "You  are  coming  in  at  the  wrong 
door  of  the  theater.  This  is  the  entrance  for  the  sheep. 
The  artists —  Ah,  if  we  had  you  back  there  now!" 

Bret  whitened  and  Sheila  flushed.  Then  they  moved 
on.  Reben  called  after  her,  laughingly: 

370 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"I've  got  that  contract  in  the  safe  yet." 

It  was  a  random  shot,  but  the  arrow  struck.  When  the 
Winfields  had  gone  on  Reben  said  to  Coleman: 

"-She's  still  beautiful — she  is  only  now  beautiful." 

Coleman,  whose  enthusiasms  were  exhausted  on  his 
typewriting  machine,  agreed,  cautiously:  "Ye-es,  but 
she's  aged  a  good  deal." 

Reben  frowned.  "So  you  could  say  of  a  rosebud  that 
has  bloomed.  She  was  pretty  then  and  clever  and  sweet, 
but  only  a  young  thing  that  didn't  know  half  as  much  as 
she  thought  she  did.  Now  she  has  loved  and  suffered 
and  she  has  had  children  and  seen  death  maybe,  and  she 
has  cried  a  lot  in  the  night.  Now  she  is  a  woman.  She 
has  the  tragic  mask,  and  I  bet  she  could  act — my  God! 
I  know  she  could  act — if  that  fellow  didn't  prevent." 

"Fellow"  was  not  the  expression  he  used.  Reben  ab 
horred  Bret  even  more  than  Bret  him. 

Once  more  Sheila  was  in  the  Odeon,  but  as  one  of  the 
laity.  When  she  entered  the  dark  auditorium  her  eyes 
rejoiced  at  the  huge,  dusty,  gold  arch  of  the  proscenium 
framing  the  deep  brilliant  canvas  where  the  figures  moved 
and  spoke.  It  was  a  finer  sight  to  her  than  any  sunset 
or  seascape  or  any  of  the  works  of  mere  nature,  for  they 
just  happened;  these  canvas  rocks  and  cloth  flowers 
were  made  to  fit  a  story.  She  preferred  the  human  to  the 
divine,  and  the  theatrical  to  the  real. 

The  play  was  good,  the  company  worthy  of  the  Odeon 
traditions.  Even  Dulcie  was  not  bad,  for  Reben  had 
subtly  cast  her  as  herself  without  telling  her  so.  She 
played  the  phases  of  her  personality  that  everybody 
recognized  but  Dulcie.  The  play  was  a  comedy  written 
by  a  gentle  satirist  with  a  passion  for  making  a  portrait 
of  his  own  times.  The  character  Dulcie  enacted  was  that 
of  a  pretty  and  well-meaning  girl  of  a  telephonic  past 
married  into  a  group  of  snobs,  through  having  fascinated 
a  rich  man  with  her  cheerful  voice.  Dulcie  could  play 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

innocence  and  amiability,  for  she  was  not  intelligent 
enough  to  be  anything  but  innocent,  even  in  her  vices, 
and  she  usually  meant  well  even  when  she  did  her  worst. 

The  author  had  selected  Dulcie  as  his  ideal  for  the  role, 
but  he  had  been  at  a  loss  how  to  tell  her  to  play  herself 
without  hurting  her  feelings.  She  saved  him  by  asking: 

"Say,  listen,  should  I  play  this  part  plebean  or  real 
refined?" 

He  hastened  to  answer,  "Play  it  real  refined." 

And  she  did.  She  was  delicious  to  those  who  under 
stood  ;  and  to  those  who  didn't  she  was  admirable.  Thus 
everybody  was  pleased. 

Sheila  would  have  enjoyed  the  role  as  a  tour  de  force, 
or  what  she  called  a  stunt,  of  character-playing.  But  she 
was  glad  that  she  was  not  playing  it.  She  felt  immortal 
longings  in  her  for  something  less  trivial  than  this  quaint 
social  photograph ;  something  more  earnest  than  any  light 
satire. 

She  did  not  want  to  play  that  play,  but  she  wanted  to 
play — she  smoldered  with  ambition.  Her  eyes  reveled  in 
the  splendor  of  the  theater,  the  well-groomed  informality 
of  the  audience  so  eager  to  be  swayed,  in  the  boundless 
opportunity  to  feed  the  hungry  people  with  the  art  of  life. 
She  felt  at  home.  This  was  her  native  land.  She 
breathed  it  all  in  with  an  almost  voluptuous  sense  of  well- 
being. 

Bret,  eying  her  instead  of  the  stage,  caught  that  con 
tentment  in  her  deep  breathing,  the  alertness  of  her  very 
nostrils  relishing  the  atmosphere,  the  vivacity  of  her 
eager  eyes.  And  his  heart  told  him  what  her  heart  told 
her,  that  this  was  where  sjie  belonged. 

He  leaned  close  to  her  and  whispered,  "  Don't  you  wish 
you  were  up  there?" 

She  heard  the  little  clang  of  jealousy  in  his  mournful 
tone,  and  for  his  sake  she  answered,  "Not  in  the  least." 

He  knew  that  she  lied,  and  why.  He  loved  her  for  her 
love  of  him,  but  he  felt  lonely. 

372 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Dulcie  did  not  send  for  Sheila  to  come  back  after  the 
play.  Broadway  stars  are  busy  people,  with  many  sup 
pliants  for  their  time.  Dulcie  had  no  time  for  ancient 
history. 

Sheila  was  glad  to  be  spared,  but  did  not  misunder 
stand  the  reason.  As  she  walked  out  with  the  audience 
she  did  not  feel  the  aristocracy  of  her  wealth  and  her 
leisure.  She  wanted  to  be  back  there  in  her  dressing- 
room,  smearing  her  features  into  a  mess  with  cold-cream 
and  recovering  her  every-day  face  from  her  workaday 
mask. 

Bret  and  she  supped  in  the  grand  manner,  and  Sheila 
had  plenty  of  stares  for  her  beauty.  But  she  could  see 
that  nobody  knew  her.  Nobody  whispered:  "That's 
Sheila  Kemble.  Look!  Did  you  see  her  in  her  last 
play?"  It  was  not  a  mere  hunger  for  notoriety  that  made 
her  regret  anonymity;  it  was  the  artist's  legitimate  need 
of  recognition  for  his  work. 

She  went  back  to  the  hotel  and  took  off  her  fine  plumage. 
It  had  lost  most  of  its  warmth  for  her.  She  had  not 
earned  it  with  her  own  success.  It  was  the  gift  of  a  man 
who  loved  her  body  and  soul,  but  hated  her  mind. 

Sheila  was  very  woman,  and  one  Paris  gown  and  the 
prospect  of  more  had  lifted  her  from  the  depths  to  the 
heights.  But  she  was  an  ambitious  wroman,  and  clothes 
alone  were  not  enough  to  sustain  her.  In  her  situation 
they  were  but  gilding  on  her  shackles.  The  more  gor 
geously  she  was  robed  the  more  restless  she  was.  She 
was  in  the  tragi-comic  plight  of  the  man  in  the  doleful 
song,  "All  dressed  up  and  no  place  to  go!" 

Fatigue  enveloped  her,  but  it  was  the  fag  of  idleness 
that  has  seen  another  day  go  by  empty,  and  views  ahead 
an  endless  series  of  empty  days  like  a  freight-train. 

She  tried  to  comfort  Bret's  anxiety  with  boasts  of  how 
well  she  was,  but  she  fell  back  on  the  pitiful  refrain,  "I'm 
all  right."  If  she  had  been  all  right  she  would  not  have 
said  so;  she  would  not  have  had  to  say  so. 

373 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Both  lay  awake  and  both  pretended  to  be  asleep.  In 
the  two  small  heads  lying  as  motionless  on  the  pillows  as 
melons  their  brains  were  busy  as  ant-hills  after  a  storm. 
Eventually  both  fell  into  that  mysterious  state  called 
sleep,  yet  neither  brain  ceased  its  civil  war. 

Bret  was  wakened  from  a  bitter  dream  of  a  broken  home 
by  Sheila's  stifled  cry.  He  spoke  to  her  and  she  mumbled 
in  her  nightmare.  He  listened  keenly  and  made  out  the 
words : 

"Bret,  Bret,  don't  leave  me.  I'll  die  if  I  don't  act. 
I  love  you,  I  love  my  children.  I'll  take  them  with  me. 
I'll  come  home  to  you.  Don't  hate  me.  I  love  you." 

Her  voice  sank  into  incoherence  and  then  into  silence, 
but  he  could  tell  by  the  twitching  of  her  body  and  the 
clutching  of  her  ringers  that  she  was  still  battling  against 
his  prejudice. 

He  wrapped  her  in  his  arms  and  she  woke  a  little,  but 
only  enough  to  murmur  a  word  of  love;  then  she  sank 
back  into  sleep  like  a  drowning  woman  who  has  slipped 
from  her  rescuer's  grasp. 

He  fell  asleep  again,  too,  but  the  daybreak  wakened 
him.  He  opened  his  eyes  and  saw  Sheila  standing  at  the 
window  and  gazing  at  her  beloved  city,  her  Canaan  which 
she  could  see  but  not  possess. 

She  shook  her  head  despairingly  and  it  reminded  him 
of  the  old  gardener's  farewell  to  the  birch-tree  that  must 
die. 

She  looked  so  eery  there  in  the  mystic  dawn ;  her  gown 
was  so  fleecy  and  her  body  so  frail  that  she  seemed  almost 
translucent,  already  more  spirit  than  flesh.  She  seemed 
like  the  ghost,  the  soul  of  herself  departed  from  the 
flesh  and  about  to  take  flight. 

Bret  thought  of  her  as  dead.  It  came  to  him  suddenly 
with  terrifying  clarity  that  she  was  very  near  to  death; 
that  she  could  not  live  long  in  the  prison  of  his  love. 

He  was  the  typical  American  husband  who  hates 
tyranny  so  much  that  he  would  rather  yield  to  his  wife's 

374 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

tyranny  than  subject  her  to  his  own.  He  took  no  pride 
in  the  thought  of  sacrificing  any  one  on  the  altar  of  his 
self,  and  least  of  all  did  he  want  Sheila's  bleeding  heart 
laid  out  there. 

The  morning  seemed  to  have  solved  the  perplexities 
of  the  night ;  chill  and  gray,  it  gave  the  chill,  gray  counsel: 
"She  will  die  if  you  do  not  return  her  where  you  found 
her."  He  vowed  the  high  resolve  that  Sheila  should  be 
replaced  upon  the  stage. 

The  pain  of  this  decision  was  so  sharp  that  when  she 
crept  back  to  bed  he  did  not  dare  to  announce  it.  He 
was  afraid  to  speak,  so  he  let  her  think  him  asleep. 

That  morning  Sheila  was  ill  again,  old  again,  and 
jaded  with  discontent.  He  reminded  her  of  her  appoint 
ments  with  the  dressmakers,  but  she  said  that  she  would 
put  them  off — or,  better  yet,  she  would  cancel  the  orders. 

He  had  their  breakfast  brought  to  the  room,  and  he 
chose  the  most  tempting  luxuries  he  could  find  on  the  bill 
of  fare.  Nothing  interested  her.  He  suggested  a  drive 
in  the  Park.  She  was  too  tired  to  get  up. 

Suddenly  he  looked  at  his  watch,  snapped  it  shut,  rose, 
said  that  he  was  late  for  his  conference.  She  asked  him 
what  time  it  was,  and  he  did  not  know  till  he  looked 
at  his  watch  again.  He  kissed  her  and  left  her,  saying 
that  he  would  lunch  down-town. 


CHAPTER  LIII 

HPHOUGH  there  was  a  telephone  in  their  rooms,  Bret 
1  went  down  to  the  public  booths.  He  remembered 
Eugene  Vickery's  tirade  about  the  crime  of  Sheila's 
idleness.  He  telephoned  to  Vickery's  apartments  and 
told  Vickery  that  he  must  see  him  at  once.  Vickery 
answered: 

"Sorry  I  can't  ask  you  up  or  come  to  where  you  are 
this  morning,  but  the  fact  is  I'm  at  the  last  revision  of  my 
new  play  and  I  can't  leave  it  while  it's  on  the  fire.  Meet 
me  at  the  Vagabonds  Club  and  we'll  have  lunch,  eh? — say, 
at  half  past  twelve." 

Bret  reached  the  club  a  little  before  the  hour.  Vickery 
had  not  come.  The  hall  captain  ushered  Bret  into  the 
waiting-room.  He  sat  there  feeling  a  hopeless  outsider. 
"The  Vagabonds"  was  made  up  chiefly  of  actors.  From 
where  he  sat  he  could  see  them  coming  and  going.  He 
studied  them  as  one  looking  down  into  a  pool  to  see  how 
curious  fish  behave  or  misbehave.  They  hailed  each  other 
with  a  simple  cordiality  that  amazed  him.  The  spirit 
was  rather  that  of  a  fraternity  chapter-house  than  of  a 
city  club,  where  every  man's  chair  is  his  castle.  Every 
thing  was  without  pose;  nearly  everybody  called  nearly 
everybody  by  his  first  name.  There  were  evidences  of 
prosperity  among  them.  Through  the  window  he  could 
see  actors,  whose  faces  were  familiar  even  to  him,  roll  up 
in  their  own  automobiles. 

At  one  o'clock  Vickery  had  not  come,  and  a  friend  of 
Bret's,  named  Crashaw,  who  had  grown  wealthy  in  the 
steel  business,  caught  sight  of  Bret  and  took  him  under 

376 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

his  wing,  registered  him  in  the  guest-book  and  led  him 
to  the  cocktail  desk.  Then  Crashaw  urged  him  to  wait 
for  the  uncertain  Vickery  no  longer,  but  to  lunch  with 
him.  Bret  declined,  but  sat  with  him  while  he  ate. 

Bret,  still  looking  for  proof  that  actors  were  not  like 
other  people,  asked  Crashaw  what  the  devil  he  was  doing 
in  that  galley. 

"It's  my  pet  club,"  said  Crashaw,  "and  I  belong  to  a 
dozen  of  the  best.  It's  the  most  prosperous  and  the  most 
densely  populated  club  in  town,  and  the  only  one  where 
a  man  can  always  find  somebody  in  a  cheerful  humor  at 
any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  and  I  like  it  best  because 
it's  the  only  club  where  people  aren't  always  acting." 

"What!"  Bret  exclaimed. 

"I  mean  it,"  said  Crashaw.  "In  the  other  clubs  the 
millionaire  is  always  playing  rich,  the  society  man  always 
at  his  lah-de-dah,  the  engineer  or  the  painter  or  the  athlete 
is  always  posing.  But  these  fellows  know  all  about  acting 
and  they  don't  permit  it  here.  So  that  forces  them  to  be 
natural.  It's  the  warmest-hearted,  gayest-hearted,  most 
human,  clubbiest  club  in  town,  and  you  ought  to  belong." 

Bret  gasped  at  the  thought  and  rather  suspected 
Crashaw  than  absolved  the  club. 

Bret  was  introduced  to  various  members,  and  even  hig 
suspicious  mind  could  not  tell  which  were  actors  and  which 
business  men,  for  there  are  as  many  types  of  actor  as 
there  are  types  of  mankind,  and  as  many  grades  of  pros 
perity,  industry,  and  virtue. 

Some  of  the  clubmen  joined  Bret's  group,  and  he  was 
finally  persuaded  to  give  Vickery  up  for  lost  and  eat  his 
luncheon  with  an  eminent  tragedian  who  told  uproarious 
stories,  and  the  very  buffoon  who  had  conquered  him  at 
the  benefit  in  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House.  The  buf 
foon  had  an  attack  of  the  blues,  but  it  yielded  to  the 
hilarity  of  the  tragedian,  and  he  departed  recharged  with 
electricity  for  his  matine'e,  where  he  would  coerce  another 
mob  into  a  state  of  rapture. 
25  377 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

It  suddenly  came  over  Bret  that  this  club  of  actors  was 
as  benevolent  an  institution  in  its  own  way  as  any  mon 
astery.  Even  the  triumphs  of  players,  which  they  were 
not  encouraged  to  recount  in  this  sanctuary,  were  triumphs 
of  humanity.  When  an  actor  boasts  how  he  "killed  'em 
in  Waco"  it  does  not  mean  that  he  shot  anybody,  took 
anybody's  money  away,  or  robbed  any  one  of  his  pride  or 
health;  it  means  that  he  made  a  lot  of  people  laugh  or 
thrilled  them  or  persuaded  them  to  salubrious  tears.  It 
is  the  conceit  of  a  benefactor  bragging  of  his  philan 
thropies.  Surely  as  amiable  an  egotism  as  could  be! 

Bret  was  now  in  the  frame  of  mind  that  Sheila  was  born 
in.  He  felt  that  the  stage  did  a  noble  work  and  therefore 
conferred  a  nobility  upon  its  people. 

All  this  he  was  mulling  over  in  the  back  of  his  head 
while  he  was  listening  to  anecdotes  that  brought  the 
tears  of  laughter  to  his  eyes.  He  needed  the  laughter; 
it  washed  his  bitter  heart  clean  as  a  sheep's.  Most  of  the 
stories  were  strictly  men's  stories,  but  those  abound 
wherever  men  gather  together.  The  difference  was  that 
these  were  better  told. 

Gradually  the  clatter  decreased;  the  crowd  thinned 
out.  It  was  Wednesday  and  many  of  the  actors  had 
matinees;  the  business  men  went  back  to  their  offices. 
Still  no  Vickery. 

By  and  by  only  a  few  members  were  left  in  the  grill 
room. 

Bret  had  laughed  himself  solemn;  now  he  was  about 
to  be  deserted.  Vickery  had  failed  him,  and  he  must 
return  to  that  doleful,  heartbroken  Sheila  with  no  word 
of  help  for  her. 

He  had  come  forth  to  seek  a  way  to  compel  her  to  return 
to  the  stage  as  a  refuge  from  the  creeping  paralysis  that 
was  extinguishing  her  life.  He  hated  the  cure,  but  pre 
ferred  it  to  Sheila's  destruction.  Now  he  was  persuaded 
that  the  cure  was  honorable,  but  beyond  his  reach.  He 
had  heard  many  stories  of  the  hard  times  upon  the  stage, 

373 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

and  of  the  unusual  army  of  idle  actors  and  actresses,  and 
he  was  afraid  that  there  would  be  no  place  for  Sheila 
even  though  he  was  himself  ready  to  release  her. 

Crashaw  rose  at  length  and  said:  "Sorry,  old  man,  but 
I've  got  to  run.  Before  I  go,  though,  I'd  like  to  show  you 
the  club.  You  can  choose  your  own  spot  and  wait  for 
Vickery." 

He  led  Bret  from  place  to  place,  pointing  out  the  por 
traits  of  famous  actors  and  authors,  the  landscapes  con 
tributed  by  artist  members,  the  trophies  of  war  presented 
by  members  from  the  army  and  navy,  the  cups  put  up 
for  fearless  combatants  about  the  pool-tables.  He  gave 
him  a  glimpse  of  the  theater,  where,  as  in  a  laboratory, 
experiments  in  drama  and  farce  and  musical  comedy  were 
made  under  ideal  conditions  before  an  expert  audience. 

Last  he  took  him  to  the  library.  It  was  deserted  save 
by  somebody  in  a  great  chair  which  hid  all  but  his  feet 
and  the  hand  that  held  a  big  volume  of  old  plays.  Crashaw 
went  forward  to  see  who  it  was.  He  exclaimed : 

"What  are  you  doing  here,  you  loafer?  Haven't  you 
a  matinee  to-day?" 

A  voice  that  sounded  familiar  to  Bret  answered,  "Ours 
is  Thursday." 

"Fine.  Then  you  can  take  care  of  a  friend  of  mine 
who's  waiting  for  Vickery." 

The  voice  answered  as  the  man  rose :  "Certainly.  Any 
friend  of  Vickery 's — "  Crashaw  said: 

"Mr.  Winfield,  you  ought  to  know  Mr.  Floyd  Eldon. 
Famous  weighing-machine,  shake  hands  with  famous 
talking-machine. ' ' 

The  two  men  shook  hands  because  Crashaw  asked  them 
to.  He  left  them  with  a  hasty  "So  long!"  and  hurried 
to  the  elevator. 

It  is  a  curious  contact,  the  hand-clasp  of  two  hostile 
men.  It  has  something  of  the  ritual  value  of  the  grip 
that  precedes  a  prize-fight  to  the  finish. 

379 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Once  Bret's  and  Eldon's  hands  were  joined,  it  was  not 
easy  to  sever  them.  There  was  a  kind  of  insult  in  being 
the  first  to  relinquish  the  pressure.  They  looked  at  each 
other  stupidly,  like  two  school-boys  who  have  quarreled. 
Neither  could  say  a  harsh  word  or  feel  a  kind  one.  They 
had  either  to  fight  or  to  laugh. 

Eldon  was  more  used  than  Bret  to  speaking  quickly 
in  an  emergency.  He  ended  what  he  would  have  called 
a  "stage  wait"  by  lifting  his  left  hand  to  his  jaw,  rubbing 
it,  and  smiling. 

"  It's  some  time  since  we  met." 

"  Nearly  five  years,  I  guess,"  said  Bret,  and  returned  the 
compliment  by  rubbing  his  own  jaw. 

"We  meet  every  few  years,"  said  Eldon.  "I  believe 
it's  my  turn  to  slug  now." 

"It  is,"  said  Bret.  "Go  on.  I've  found  that  I  didn't 
owe  you  that  last  one.  I  misunderstood.  I  apologize." 
Bret  said  this  not  because  of  any  feeling  of  cordiality,  but 
because  he  believed  it  especially  important  not  to  be  dis 
honest  to  an  enemy. 

Eldon,  with  equal  punctilio  and  no  more  affection, 
answered:  "I  imagine  the  offense  was  outlawed  years 
ago.  I  never  knew  what  the  cause  of  your  anger  was, 
but  I'm  glad  if  you  know  it  wasn't  true." 

Silence  fell  upon  them.  Bret  was  wondering  whether 
he  ought  to  describe  the  injustice  he  had  done  Eldon. 
Eldon  was  debating  whether  it  would  be  more  conspicuous 
to  ask  about  Sheila  or  to  avoid  asking  about  her.  Finally 
he  took  a  chance: 

"And  how  is  Mrs.  Winfield?" 

The  question  cleared  the  air  magically.  Bret  said, 
"Oh,  she's  well,  thank  you,  very  well — that  is,  no,  she's 
not  well  at  all." 

Bret  had  attempted  a  concealment  of  his  cross,  but  the 
truth  leapt  out  of  him.  Eldon  was  politely  solicitous: 

"Oh,  I  am  sorry!  Very  sorry!  She's  not  seriously  ill, 
I  hope." 

380 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

"  She's  worse  than  ill.     I'm  worried  to  death !" 

Eldon's  alarm  was  genuine.  "What  a  pity !  Have  you 
been  to  see  a  specialist?  What  seems  to  be  the  trouble?" 

"  She's  pining  away.  She —  I  think  I  made  a  mistake 
in  taking  her  off  the  stage.  I  think  she  ought  to  be  at 
work  again." 

Eldon  was  as  astounded  at  hearing  this  from  Winfield 
as  Bret  at  hearing  himself  say  it.  But  Bret  was  in  a  panic 
of  fear  for  Sheila's  very  life  and  he  had  to  tell  some  one. 
Once  he  had  betrayed  himself  so  far,  he  was  driven  on: 

"She  won't  admit  it.  She's  trying  to  fight  off  the 
longing.  But  the  battle  is  wearing  her  out.  You  see, 
we  have  two  children.  We  have  no  quarrel  with  each 
other.  We're  happy — ideally  happy  together.  She  feels 
that  she  ought  to  be  contented.  She  insists  that  she  is. 
But — well,  she  isn't,  that's  all.  I've  tried  everything, 
but  I  believe  that  the  only  hope  of  saving  her  is  to  get 
her  back  where  she  belongs.  Idleness  is  killing  her." 

Eldon  hid  in  his  heart  any  feeling  that  might  have 
surged  up  of  disprized  love  finding  itself  vindicated.  His 
thoughts  were  solemn  and  he  spoke  with  earnestness : 

"  I  believe  you  are  right.  You  must  know.  I  can  quite 
understand.  People  laugh  a  good  deal  at  actresses  who 
come  back  after  leaving  the  stage.  They  think  it  is  a 
kind  of  craze  for  excitement.  But  it  is  better  than  that. 
The  stage  is  still  the  only  place  where  a  woman's  individu 
ality  is  recognized  and  where  she  can  be  really  herself. 

"Sheila — er — Miss  Kemble — pardon  me — Mrs.  Win- 
field  has  the  theater  in  her  blood,  of  course.  Almost  all 
the  Kemble  women  have  been  actresses,  and  good  ones. 
Your  wife  was  a  charming  woman  to  act  with.  We 
fought  each  other — for  points.  I  feel  very  grateful  to 
her,  for  she  gave  me  my  first  encouragement.  She  and 
her  aunt,  Mrs.  Vining,  taught  me  my  first  lessons.  I 
grew  very  fond  of  them  both  and  very  grateful. 

"There's  a  natural  enmity  between  a  leading  woman 
and  a  leading  man.  They  love  each  other  as  two  rival 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

prize-fighters  do.  The  better  boxer  each  of  them  is,  the 
better  the  fight.  Sheila — your  wife,  always  gave  me  a 
fight — on  the  stage — and  after,  sometimes,  off  the  stage. 
She  was  a  great  actress — a  born  aristocrat  of  the  theater." 

Bret  took  fright  at  the  word  "was."  It  tolled  like  a 
passing-bell.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  that  Sheila  should 
not  be  destroyed  on  his  account.  He  had  determined, 
after  the  morning's  relapse,  that  he  would  restore  his 
stolen  sweetheart  to  her  rightful  owners  as  soon  as  he 
could.  He  would  keep  as  close  to  her  as  might  be.  His 
business  would  permit  him  to  make  occasional  journeys 
to  Sheila.  His  mother  would  take  care  of  the  children 
and  be  enchanted  with  the  privilege.  Sometimes  they 
could  travel  a  little  with  Sheila. 

His  great-grandmother  had  crossed  the  plains  in  a 
prairie-schooner  with  five  children,  and  borne  a  sixth  on 
the  way.  That  was  considered  praiseworthy  in  all  en 
thusiasm.  Wherein  was  it  any  worse  for  an  actress  to 
take  her  children  with  her? 

There  was  no  hiding  from  slander  in  any  case,  and  he 
must  endure  the  contempt  of  those  who  did  not  under 
stand.  The  one  unendurable  thing  was  the  ruination  of 
his  beloved's  happiness,  of  her  very  life,  even. 

He  had  sought  out  Vickery  as  an  old  friend  who  knew 
the  theater  world.  But  Vickery  had  failed  him.  He 
dreaded  to  go  back  to  Sheila  without  definite  newrs. 

Of  all  men  he  most  hated  to  ask  Eldon's  help,  but  Eldon 
was  the  sole  rescuer  on  the  horizon.  He  threw  off  his 
pride  and  appealed  to  the  man  he  had  fought  with. 

"Mr.  Eldon,  you  say  you  think  my  wife  is  a  great 
artist.  Will  you  help  me  to — to  set  her  to  work?  I'm 
afraid  for  her,  Mr.  Eldon.  I'm  afraid  that  she  is  going  to 
die.  Will  you  help  me?" 

"Me?  Will  I  help?"  Eldon  stammered.  "What  can 
I  do?  I'm  not  a  manager,  I  have  no  company,  no  theater, 
hardly  any  influence." 

Bret's  courage  went  to  pieces.  He  was  a  stranger  in  a 

382 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

strange  land.  "I  don't  know  any  manager — except 
Reben,  and  he  hates  me.  I  don't  know  anything  at  all 
about  the  stage.  I  only  know  that  my  wife  wants  her 
career,  and  I'm  going  to  get  it  for  her  if  I  have  to  build 
a  theater  myself.  But  that  takes  time.  I  thought  per 
haps  you  would  know  some  way  better  than  that." 

Eldon  was  stirred  by  Bret's  resolution.  He  said :  ' '  There 
must  be  a  way.  I'll  do  anything  I  can — everything  I 
can,  for  the  sake  of  the  stage — and  for  the  sake  of  an  old 
colleague — and  for  the  sake  of — of  a  man  as  big  as  you, 
Mr.  Winfield." 

And  now  their  hands  shot  out  to  each  other  without 
compunction  or  restraint  and  wrestled,  as  it  were,  in  a 
tug  of  peace. 


CHAPTER  LIV 

IT  was  thus  that    Eugene  Vickery  found   them.     His 
gasp  of  astonishment  ended  in  a  fit  of  coughing  as  he 
came  forward,  trying  to  express  his  amazement  and  his 
delight. 

Bret  seized  his  right  hand,  Eldon  his  left.  Bret  was 
horrified  at  the  ghostly  visage  of  his  friend.  Already  it 
had  a  post-mortem  look. 

Vickery  saw  the  shock  in  Bret's  eyes.  He  dropped  into 
a  seat. 

"Don't  tell  me  how  bad  I  look.  I  know  it.  But  I 
don't  care.  I've  finished  my  play !  Incidentally  my  play 
has  finished  me.  But  what  does  that  matter?  I  put 
into  it  all  there  was  of  me.  That's  what  I'm  here  for. 
That's  why  there's  nothing  much  left.  But  I'm  glad. 
I've  done  all  I  can.  J'ai  fait  mon  possible.  It's  glorious 
to  do  that.  And  it's  a  good  play.  It's  a  great  play — 
though  I  do  say  it  that  shouldn't.  Floyd,  I've  got  it!" 
He  turned  back  to  Bret.  "Poor  Floyd  here  has  heard 
me  read  it  a  dozen  times,  and  he's  suggested  a  thousand 
changes.  I  was  in  the  vein  this  morning.  I  worked  all 
day  yesterday,  and  all  night  till  sunrise.  Then  I  was  up 
at  seven.  When  you  called  me  I  was  writing  like  a  mad 
man.  And  when  the  lunch  hour  came  I  was  going  so  fast 
I  didn't  dare  stop  then  even  to  telephone.  I  apologize." 

"Please  don't,"  said  Bret. 

"I  see  you've  had  your  luncheon.  Will  you  have 
another  with  me?  I'm  famished." 

He  rang  for  a  waiter  and  ordered  a  substantial  meal 
and  then  returned  to  Bret. 

384 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

"How's  Sheila?" 

"She— she's  not  well." 

"What  a  shame!  She  ought  to  be  at  work  and  I  wish 
to  the  Lord  she  were.  I  may  as  well  tell  you,  Bret,  that 
I  took  the  liberty  of  imagining  Sheila  as  the  principal 
woman  of  my  play.  And  now  that  it's  finished,  I  can't 
think  of  anybody  who  fills  the  bill  except  your  wife. 
There  are  thousands  of  actresses  starving  to  death,  but 
none  of  them  suits  my  character.  None  of  them  could 
play  it  but  your  Sheila." 

"Then  for  God's  sake  let  her  play  it!"  Bret  groaned. 

Vickery,  astonished  beyond  surprise,  mumbled,  "What 
did  you  say?" 

Bret  repeated  his  prayer,  explained  the  situation  to  the 
incredulous  Vickery,  apologized  for  himself  and  his 
plight.  Vickery 's  joy  came  slowly  with  belief.  The  red 
glow  that  spotted  his  cheeks  spread  all  over  his  face 
like  a  creeping  fire. 

When  he  understood,  he  murmured:  "Bret,  you're  a 
better  man  than  I  thought  you  were.  Whether  or  not 
you've  saved  Sheila's  life,  you've  certainly  saved  mine." 
A  torment  of  coughing  broke  down  his  boast,  and  he 
amended,  "Artistically,  I  mean.  You've  saved  my  play, 
and  that's  all  that  counts.  The  one  sorrow  of  mine  was 
that  when  I  had  finished  it  there  was  no  one  to  give 
it  life.  But  what  if  Sheila  doesn't  like  it?  What  if 
she  refuses!" 

His  woe  was  so  profound  that  Bret  reached  across  the 
table  and  squeezed  his  arm — it  was  hardly  more  than  a 
bone.  Bret  said,  "I'll  make  her  like  it!" 

"She's  sure  to,"  Eldon  said. 

Vickery  broke  in:  "You  ought  to  hear  him  read  it. 
Sometimes  he  reads  a  doubtful  scene  to  me.  Then  it 
sounds  greater  to  me  than  I  ever  dreamed.  A  manu 
script  is  like  an  electric-light  bulb,  all  glass  and  brass 
and  little  loops  of  thread  that  don't  mean  anything. 
When  the  right  actor  reads  it  it  fills  with  light  like  a 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

bowl  of  fire  and  shines  into  dark  places."     His  mood 
was  so  grave  that  it  influenced  his  language. 

Bret  said,  "Let  me  take  the  manuscript  to  Sheila." 

Vickery  frowned.  "It's  not  in  shape  for  her  eyes.  It 
ought  to  be  read  to  her." 

"Come  read  it  to  her,  then." 

"My  voice  is  gone  and  I  cough  all  the  time,  but  if — " 

He  paused.  He  did  not  dare  suggest  that  Eldon  read 
it  for  him.  Eldon  did  not  dare  to  volunteer.  Bret  did 
not  dare  to  ask  him.  But  at  length,  after  a  silence  of 
crucial  distress,  he  overcame  himself  and  said,  with 
difficulty : 

"Perhaps  Mr.  Eldon  would  be — would  be  willing  to 
read  it." 

"  I  should  be  very  glad  to,"  said  Eldon  in  a  low  tone. 

It  was  strange  how  solemn  and  tremulous  they  were  all 
three  over  so  small  a  matter.  A  razor  edge  is  a  small  thing, 
but  a  most  uncomfortable  place  to  balance. 

Vickery  broke  out  with  a  revulsion  to  hope.  "Great!" 
he  exclaimed.  "When?" 

"This  afternoon  would  please  me  best,"  said  Bret, 
rather  sickly,  now  that  the  business  had  gone  so  far. 
"If  Mr.  Eldon—" 

"I  am  free  till  seven,"  said  Eldon. 

"I'll  go  back  and  ask  Mrs.  Winfield,  if  she  hasn't  gone 
out,"  said  Bret,  rising. 

"I'll  go  fasten  the  manuscript  together,"  said  Vickery, 
rising. 

"I'll  go  along  and  glance  over  the  new  scenes,"  said 
Eldon,  rising. 

"Telephone  me  at  my  place,"  said  Vickery,  "and  let 
me  know  one  way  or  the  other  as  soon  as  you  can.  The 
suspense  is  killing." 

They  walked  out  on  the  steps  of  the  club,  and  Bret 
hailed  a  passing  taxicab.  As  he  turned  round  he  saw 
Eldon  lifting  Vickery  into  a  car  that  was  evidently  his 
own,  for  he  took  the  wheel. 

386 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

The  nearer  he  got  to  the  hotel  the  more  Bret  repented 
of  his  rash  venture,  the  uglier  it  looked  from  various  angles. 
He  hoped  that  Sheila  would  be  at  the  dressmaker's,  con 
tenting  herself  with  rhapsodies  in  silk. 

But  she  was  sitting  at  the  window.  She  was  dressed, 
but  her  eyes  were  dull  as  she  turned  to  greet  him. 

"  How  are  you,  honey?"  he  asked. 

"  I'm  all  right,"  she  sighed.     The  old  phrase! 

Then  ho  knew  he  had  crossed  the  Rubicon  and  must 
go  forward.  "Why  didn't  you  go  to  your  fitting?" 

"  I  tried  to,  but  I  was  too  weak.  I  don't  need  any  new 
clothes.  How  was  your  business  talk?" 

"I  can't  tell  yet,"  he  said,  and,  after  a  battle  with 
his  stage-fright,  broached  the  most  serious  business  of 
his  life.  He  had  a  right  to  be  a  bad  actor  and  he 
read  wretchedly  the  lines  he  improvised  on  his  own 
scenario.  "By  the  way,  I  stumbled  across  Eugene 
Vickery  this  afternoon." 

"Oh,  did  you?     How  is  he?" 

"Pretty  sick.     He's  just  finished  a  new  play." 

"Oh,  has  he?" 

"He  says  it's  the  work  of  his  life." 

"Poor  boy!" 

"  I  don't  think  he'll  write  another." 

" Great  heavens !     Is  he  so  bad?" 

"Terribly  weak.  I  told  him  you  were  in  town  and  he 
was  anxious  to  see  you." 

"Why  didn't  you  invite  him  up?" 

"  I  did.  He  said  he'd  like  to  come  this  afternoon  if  you 
were  willing." 

"By  all  means.     Better  call  him  up  at  once." 

Bret  went  to  the  telephone,  but  turned  to  say,  trying 
to  be  casual,  "  He  asked  if  you'd  be  interested  in  hearing 
his  play." 

"Indeed  I  would!"  There  was  distinct  animation  in 
this.  "Ask  him  to  bring  it  along." 

Bret  cleared  his  throat  guiltily.  "I  told  him  I  was 

387 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

sure  you'd  be  dying  to  hear  it,  and  he  said  he  wondered 
if  you  would  mind  if  he — er — brought  along  a  friend  to 
read  it.  Vick's  voice  is  so  weak,  you  know." 

"I'm  not  in  the  mood  for  strangers,  but  if  Vickery 
wants  it,  why — of  course.  Did  he  say  who  it  was?" 

"Floyd  Eldon." 

That  name  had  a  way  of  dropping  into  the  air  like  a 
meteor.  When  two  lovers  have  fought  over  an  out 
sider's  name  that  name  always  recurs  with  all  its  battle 
clamor.  It  is  as  hard  to  mention  idly  as  "Gettysburg" 
or  "Waterloo." 

Sheila  knew  what  Bret  had  said  of  Eldon,  what  he  had 
thought  of  him  and  done  to  him.  She  was  amazed,  and  it 
is  hard  not  to  look  guilty  when  old  accusations  of  guilt 
are  remembered.  Bret  saw  the  sudden  tensity  in  her 
hands  where  they  held  the  arms  of  her  chair.  He  felt  a 
miserable  return  of  the  old  nausea,  the  incurable  regret 
of  love  that  it  can  never  count  on  complete  possession  of 
its  love,  past,  present,  and  future.  But  he  was  committed 
now  to  the  conviction  that  he  could  not  keep  Sheila  behind 
bars,  and  had  no  right  to  try.  He  had  given  her  back 
to  herself  and  the  world,  as  one  uncages  a  bird,  hoping 
that  it  will  hover  about  the  house  and  return,  but  never 
sure  what  will  draw  it,  or  whither,  once  it  has  climbed  into 
the  sky. 

To  escape  the  ordeal  of  watching  Sheila,  and  the  ordeal 
of  being  questioned,  he  called  up  Vickery 's  number 
and  told  him  to  come  over  at  once,  and  added,  "Both 
of  you." 

Then  he  hung  up  the  receiver  and  went  forward  to  face 
Sheila's  eyes.  He  told  her  all  that  had  happened  except 
his  appeal  to  Eldon  and  their  conspiracy  to  get  her  back 
on  the  stage. 

She  was  agitated  immensely,  and  risked  his  further 
suspicion  by  setting  to  work  to  primp  and  to  change 
her  gown  to  one  that  her  nature  found  more  appropriate 
to  such  an  audition. 

388 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Eldon  and  Vickery  arrived  while  she  was  in  the  dressing- 
room,  and  Bret  whispered  to  them: 

"I  haven't  told  her  that  the  play  is  for  her.  Don't 
let  her  know." 

This  threw  Eldon  and  Vickery  into  confusion,  and  they 
greeted  Sheila  with  helpless  insincerity. 

She  saw  how  feeble  Vickery  was  and  how  well  Eldon 
was,  and  both  saw  that  she  was  not  the  Sheila  that  had 
left  the  stage.  Eldon  felt  a  resentment  against  Winfield 
for  what  time  and  discontent  had  wrought  to  Sheila,  but 
he  knew  what  the  theater  can  do  for  impaired  beauty 
with  make-up  and  artifice  of  lights. 

After  a  certain  amount  of  small  talk  and  fuss  about 
chairs  the  reading  began.  To  Bret  it  was  like  a  death- 
warrant;  to  Vickery  and  Eldon  it  was  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus;  to  Sheila  it  was  like  the  single  copy  of  a  great 
romance  that  she  could  never  own. 

Eldon  read  without  action  or  gesticulation  and  with 
almost  no  attempt  to  indicate  dialect  or  characterization. 
But  he  gave  hint  enough  of  each  to  set  the  hearers'  imagi 
nation  astir  and  not  enough  to  hamper  it. 

Outside  in  the  far-below  streets  was  a  muffled  hubbub 
of  motors  and  street-cars.  And  within  there  was  only 
the  heavy  elegance  of  hotel  furniture.  But  the  listeners 
felt  themselves  peering  into  the  lives  of  living  people  in  a 
conflict  of  interests. 

The  light  in  the  room  grew  dimmer  and  dimmer  as 
Eldon  read,  till  the  air  was  thick  with  the  deep  crimson  of 
sunset  straining  across  the  roofs.  It  served  as  the  very 
rose-light  of  daybreak  in  which  the  play  ended,  calling  the 
husband  and  wife  to  their  separate  tasks  in  the  new  man 
hood  and  the  new  womanhood,  outside  the  new  home  to 
which  they  should  return  in  the  evening,  to  the  peace 
they  had  earned  with  toil. 

Bret  hated  the  play  because  he  loved  it,  because  he 
felt  that  it  had  a  right  to  be  and  it  needed  his  wife  to 

389 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

give  it  being;  because  it  seemed  to  command  him  to 
sacrifice  his  old-fashioned  home  for  the  sake  of  the  ever- 
demanding  world. 

Sheila  made  no  comment  at  all  during  the  reading. 
She  might  have  been  an  allegory  of  attention. 

Even  when  Eldon  closed  the  manuscript  and  the  play 
with  the  quiet  word  "Curtain"  Sheila  did  not  speak. 
The  three  men  watched  her  for  a  long  hushed  moment, 
and  then  they  saw  two  great  tears  roll  from  the  clenched 
eyes. 

She  murmured,  feebly:  "Who  is  the  lucky  woman  that 
is  to — to  create  it?" 

"You!"  said  Bret. 

Woman-like,  Sheila's  first  emotion  at  the  vision  of  her 
husband  urging  her  to  go  back  on  the  stage  was  one  of  pain 
and  terror.  She  stared  at  Bret  through  the  tears  evoked 
by  Vickery's  art,  and  she  gasped :  "  Don't  you  love  me  any 
more?  Are  you  tired  of  me?" 

"Oh,  my  God!"  said  Bret. 

But  when  he  collapsed  Vickery  took  the  floor  and 
harangued  her  till  she  yielded,  to  be  rid  of  him  and  of 
Eldon,  that  she  might  question  her  husband. 


CHAPTER  LV 

WHEN  they  were  alone  Bret  explained  his  decision 
and  the  heartbreaking  time  he  had  had  arriving  at 
it.  He  would  not  debate  it  again.  He  permitted  Sheila 
the  consolation  of  feeling  herself  an  outcast,  and  she 
reveled  in  misery.  But  the  first  rehearsal  was  like  a 
bugle-call  to  a  cavalry  horse  hitched  to  a  milk-wagon. 

She  entered  the  Odeon  Theater  again  by  the  back  door 
and  bowed  to  the  same  old  man,  who  smiled  her  in  with 
bleary  welcome.  And  Pennock  was  at  her  post  looking 
as  untheatrical  as  ever.  She  embraced  Sheila  and  said, 
"It's  good  to  see  you  workin'  again." 

The  next  person  she  met  was  Mrs.  Vining,  looking  as 
time-proof  as  ever. 

"What  on  earth  are  you  doing  here?"  Sheila  cried. 

And  Mrs.  Vining  sighed.  "Oh,  there's  an  old  catty 
mother-in-law  in  the  play,  and  Reben  dragged  me  out  of 
the  Old  Ladies'  Home  to  play  it." 

Sheila's  presence  at  the  Odeon  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  when  Eldon  asked  Reben  to  release  him  so  that  he 
might  play  in  "Clipped  Wings,"  with  Sheila  as  star  and 
Bret  Winfield  as  the  angel,  Reben  declined  with  violence. 

When  Eldon  told  him  of  the  play  he  demanded  the 
privilege  of  producing  it.  He  ridiculed  Bret  as  a  theatrical 
manager  and  easily  persuaded  him  to  retire  to  his  weighing- 
machines.  Reben  dug  out  the  yellowed  contract  with 
Sheila,  had  it  freshly  typed,  and  sent  it. to  her,  and  she 
signed  it  with  all  the  woman's  terror  at  putting  her 
signature  to  a  mortgage. 

One  matine'e  day,  as  Sheila  left  the  stage  door,  she  met 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Dtdcie  coming  in  to  make  ready  for  the  afternoon's 
performance. 

Dulcie  clutched  her  with  overacted  enthusiasm  and 
said:  "Oh,  my  dear,  it's  so  nice  that  you're  coming  back 
on  the  stage,  after  all  these  years.  Too  bad  you  can't 
have  your  old  theater,  isn't  it?  We're  doomed  to  stay 
here  forever,  it  seems.  But — oh,  my  dear! — you  mustn't 
work  so  hard.  You  look  all  worn  out.  Are  you  ill?" 

Sheila  retreated  in  as  good  order  as  possible,  breathing 
resolutions  to  oust  Dulcie  from  the  star  dressing-room 
and  quench  her  name  in  the  electric  lights.  That  vow 
sustained  her  through  many  a  weak  hour. 

But  at  times  she  was  not  sure  of  even  that  success.  At 
times  she  was  sure  of  failure  and  the  odious  humiliation 
of  returning  to  Blithe  vale  like  a  prodigal  wife  fed  on  husks 
of  criticism. 

Bret  was  called  back  to  his  factory  by  his  business  and 
by  his  request.  He  did  not  want  to  impede  Sheila  in  any 
way.  He  had  gone  through  rehearsals  and  try-outs  with 
her  once,  and,  as  he  said,  once  was  plenty. 

Sheila  wept  at  his  desertion  and  called  herself  names. 
She  wept  for  her  children  and  called  herself  worse  names. 
She  wept  on  Mrs.  Vining  at  various  opportunities  when 
she  was  not  rehearsing. 

At  length  the  old  lady's  patience  gave  out  and  she 
stormed,  "  I  warned  you  not  to  marry." 

"You  warned  me  not  to  marry  in  the  profession,  and  I 
didn't." 

"Well,"  sniffed  Mrs.  Vining,  "I  supposed  you  had  sense 
enough  of  your  own  not  to  marry  outside  of  it." 

"But—" 

"And  now  that  you  did,  take  your  medicine.  You're 
crying  because  you  want  to  be  with  your  man  and  your 
children.  But  when  you  had  them  you  cried  just  the 
same.  All  the  women  I  know  on  the  stage  and  off,  married 
and  single,  childless  or  not,  are  always  crying  about  some 
thing.  Good  Lord!  it's  time  women  learned  to  get  along 

392 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

without  tears.  Men  used  to  cry  and  faint,  and  they  out 
grew  it.  Women  don't  faint  any  more.  Why  can't  they 
quit  crying?  The  whole  kit  and  caboodle  of  you  make 
me  sick." 

"Thank  you!"  said  Sheila,  and  walked  away.  But  she 
was  mad  enough  to  rehearse  her  big  scene  more  vigorously 
than  ever.  Without  a  slip  of  memory  she  delivered  her 
long  tirade  so  fiercely  that  the  company  and  Vickery  and 
Batterson  broke  into  applause.  From  the  auditorium 
Reben  shouted,  "Bully!" 

As  Sheila  walked  aside,  Mrs.  Vining  threw  her  arms 
around  her  and  called  her  an  angel  and  proved  that  even 
she  had  not  lost  the  gift  of  tears. 

Bret  was  not  without  his  own  torments.  The  village 
people  drove  him  frantic  with  their  questions  and  their 
rapturous  horror  and  the  gossip  they  bandied  about. 

His  mother,  who  hurried  to  the  "rescue"  of  his  home 
and  his  "abandoned  children,"  strengthened  him  more  by 
her  bitterness  against  Sheila  than  she  could  have  done  by 
any  praise  of  her.  A  man  always  discounts  a  woman's 
criticism  of  another  woman.  It  always  outrages  his  male 
sense  of  fairness  and  good  sportsmanship. 

Besides,  Bret  was  driven  by  every  reason  of  loyalty  to 
defend  his  wife.  He  told  his  mother  and  his  neighbors 
that  he  would  see  her  oftener  than  a  soldier  or  a  sailor 
sees  his  wife.  He  would  keep  close  to  her.  His  business 
would  permit  him  to  make  occasional  journeys  to  her. 
Their  summers  would  be  honeymoons  together. 

He  made  good  use  of  the  argumentum  ad  feminam  by 
telling  his  mother  how  well  the  children  would  profit  by 
their  grandmother's  wisdom,  and  he  promised  them  the 
fascinating  privilege  of  traveling  with  their  mother  at 
times. 

But  it  was  not  easy  for  Bret.  He  knew  that  many 
people  would  laugh  at  him  for  a  milksop;  others  would 
despise  him  for  a  complacent  assistant  in  his  wife's  dis- 
26  393 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

honor.  At  times  the  dread  of  this  gossip  drove  him  almost 
mad. 

He  had  his  dark  hours  of  jealous  distrust,  too,  and  the 
very  thought  of  Eldon  filled  him  with  dread.  Eldon  was 
gifted  and  handsome,  and  congenial  to  Sheila,  and  a 
fellow-artist  as  well.  And  his  other  self,  the  lago  self 
that  every  Othello  has,  whispered  that  hateful  word 
"propinquity"  in  his  ear  with  vicious  insinuation. 

He  gnashed  his  teeth  against  himself  and  groaned, 
"You  fool,  you've  thrown  her  into  Eldon's  arms." 

His  better  self  answered:  "No,  you  have  given  her  to 
the  arms  of  the  world.  Propinquity  breeds  hatred  and 
jealousy  and  boredom  and  emulation  as  often  as  it  breeds 
love." 

He  would  have  felt  reassured  if  he  had  seen  Sheila 
fighting  Eldon  for  points,  for  positions,  and  for  lines. 

There  was  one  line  in  Eldon's  part  that  Sheila  called 
the  most  beautiful  line  in  the  play,  a  line  about  the  hus 
band's  dead  mother.  Sheila  first  admired  then  coveted 
the  line. 

At  last  she  openly  asked  for  it.  Eldon  was  furious  and 
Vickery  was  aghast. 

"But,  my  dear  Sheila,"  he  explained,  "you  couldn't  use 
that  line.  Your  mother  is  present  in  the  cast." 

"Couldn't  we  kill  her  off?"  said  Sheila. 

"I  like  that!"  cried  Mrs.  Vining,  who  was  playing  the 
part. 

Sheila  gave  up  the  line,  but  with  reluctance.  But  it 
was  some  time  before  Eldon  and  Vickery  regained  their 
illusions  concerning  her. 

And  yet  it  was  something  more  than  selfish  greed  that 
made  her  grasp  at  everything  for  the  betterment  of  her 
r61e.  It  was  like  a  portrait  she  was  painting  and  she 
wished  for  it  every  enhancement.  An  architect  who  plans 
a  cathedral  is  not  blamed  for  wishing  to  raze  whole  acres 
so  that  his  building  may  command  the  scene.  The  actor's 
often  berated  avarice  is  no  more  ignoble,  really.  And  the 

394 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

actor  who  is  indifferent  or  over-generous  is  like  the  care 
less  artist  in  other  fields.  He  builds  neither  himself  nor 
his  work. 

Mrs.  Vining  fought  half  a  day  against  the  loss  of  a  line 
that  emphasized  the  meanness  of  her  character.  She 
wanted  to  be  hated.  She  played  hateful  r61es  with  such 
exquisite  art  that  audiences  loved  her  while  they  loathed 
her. 

So  Sheila  spared  nothing  and  nobody  to  make  the  part 
she  played  the  greatest  part  was  ever  played.  Least  of  all 
she  spared  herself,  her  strength,  her  mind,  her  time. 
But  she  battened  on  work,  she  was  a  glutton  for  punish 
ment.  She  had  her  stage-manager  begging  for  a  rest, 
and  that  is  rare  achievement. 

And  all  the  while  she  grew  stronger,  haler,  heartier;  she 
grew  so  beautiful  from  needing  to  be  beautiful  that  even 
Dulcie  Ormerod,  passing  her  once  more  at  the  mail-box, 
gasped: 

"My  Gawd!  but  that  hat  is  becoming.  Tell  me  quick 
what's  the  address  of  your  milliner." 

That  was  approbation  indeed  from  Dulcie. 

At  length  the  dreadful  dress-rehearsal  was  reached. 
The  usual  unheard-of  mishaps  happened.  Everybody  was 
hopeless.  The  actors  parroted  the  old  saying  that  "  a  bad 
dress-rehearsal  means  a  good  first  performance,"  know 
ing  that  it  proves  true  about  half  the  time. 

The  piece  was  tried  first  in  Plainfield.  The  local  au 
dience  was  not  demonstrative.  Eldon  tried  to  comfort 
himself  by  saying  that  the  play  was  too  big,  too  stunning, 
for  them  to  understand. 

The  next  night  they  played  in  Red  Bank  and  were 
stunned  with  applause  in  the  first  scene  and  increasing 
enthusiasm  throughout.  But  that  proved  nothing,  and 
Jaffer,  who  was  with  the  company,  remembered  a  famous 
failure  that  had  been  a  triumph  in  Red  Bank  and  a  dis 
aster  on  Broadway. 

The  fear  of  that  merciless  Broadway  gauntlet  settled 

395 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

over  the  company.  Success  meant  everything  to  every 
member.  It  meant  the  paying  of  bills,  a  warm  home  for 
the  winter,  a  step  upward  for  the  future.  Even  one  of 
the  stage-hands  had  a  romance  that  required  a  Nevr 
York  run. 


CHAPTER  LVI 

SOME  of  the  provincial  cities  said  the  play  was  dis 
gustingly  immoral  and  the  police  ought  to  stop  it.  The 
accusation  hurt.  Was  it  immoral  ?  A  certain  clergy  man 
said  the  play  was  a  sermon;  a  certain  critic  said  it  was 
vile.  Which  was  true?  It  is  not  pleasant  to  be  called 
vile  even  though  the  epithet  has  been  hurled  at  many  of 
the  noblest. 

The  bitter  discussion  it  aroused  wounded  Vickery 
mortally.  Eldon  told  him  that  nothing  was  better  for 
success  than  to  arouse  discussion,  and  that  the  final  proof 
of  great  art  is  its  ability  to  make  a  lot  of  people  ferociously 
angry. 

But  Vickery  would  not  be  cheered  up.  He  said  that 
the  bumps  were  killing  him. 

"You  see,  I'm  so  lean  and  weak,  I've  got  no  shock- 
absorbers.  I  can't  do  anything  but  cough  like  a  damned 
he-Camille." 

Sheila  and  Batterson  and  even  Reben  begged  him  to 
leave  the  company  and  go  back  to  town.  But  he  was  in 
a  frenzy  for  perfection.  He  was  relentless  with  his  own 
lines  and  scenes.  He  denounced  them  rabidly.  He  tore 
out  pages  of  manuscript  from  the  prompt-copy,  and  sat 
at  the  table  writing  new  scenes  while  the  rehearsals  went 
on.  Between  the  acts  he  wrote  new  lines.  He  wrote  in 
a  terrible  hurry.  He  was  in  a  terrible  hurry. 

But  he  was  in  a  frenzy  for  perfection.  He  was  relentless 
with  the  actors.  Every  word,  every  silence,  was  important 
to  him  as  a  link  in  his  chain  of  gold. 

Batterson  and  Reben  and  Sheila  questioned  many  of 

397 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

his  words,  phrases,  and  even  whole  scenes.  Everybody 
had  a  more  or  less  respectful  criticism,  a  more  or  less 
brilliant  contribution,  but  Vickery  had  had  enough  of  this 
piecemeal  microscopy. 

"A  play  succeeds  or  falls  by  its  big  idea,"  he  said,  "by 
its  big  sweep,  and  nothing  else  matters.  The  greatest  play 
in  the  world  is  'Hamlet,'  and  it's  so  full  of  faults  that  a 
whole  library  has  been  written  about  it.  But  you  can't 
kill  its  big  points.  What  difference  does  it  make  how  the 
shore-line  runs  if  your  ocean  is  an  ocean?  Let  me  alone, 
I  tell  you.  Do  my  play  the  best  you  can,  then  we'll  soon 
know  if  the  public  wants  it. 

"You  ruined  one  play  for  me,  Mr.  Reben,  but  you  can't 
monkey  with  this  one.  I  thought  of  all  the  objections 
you've  made  and  a  hundred  others  when  I  was  writing  it. 
I  liked  it  this  way  then,  and  I  knew  as  much  then  as  I 
do  now — only  I  was  red-hot  at  the  time,  and  I'm  not  going 
to  fool  with  it  in  cold  blood." 

There  were  arguments  and  instances  enough  against 
him,  and  Reben  and  Batterson  showered  him  with  stories 
of  plays  that  had  been  saved  from  disaster  by  collabora 
tion.  He  answered  with  stories  of  plays  that  had  suc 
ceeded  without  it  and  plays  that  had  crashed  in  spite 
of  it. 

"It's  all  a  gamble,"  he  cried.  "Let's  throw  our  coin 
on  one  number  and  either  make  or  lose.  Anyway,  my 
contract  says  you  can't  alter  a  line  without  my  consent, 
and  you'll  never  get  that.  It's  my  last  play,  and  it's  my 
own  play,  and  they've  got  to  take  it  or  leave  it  just  as  I 
write  it." 

They  yielded  more  in  deference  to  his  feelings  than  to 
his  art. 

At  last  the  company  turned  to  charge  down  upon 
New  York.  They  arrived  at  three  o'clock  on  a  Sunday 
morning. 

As  Sheila  and  Mrs.  Vining  rode  through  the  streets 
to  their  hotel  they  saw  on  all  sides  the  work  of  the  ad- 

398 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

vertising  men.  On  bill-boards  were  big  "stands"  with 
Sheila's  name  in  letters  as  big  as  herself.  On  smaller 
boards  her  full-length  portrait  smiled  at  her  from  "three 
sheets."  In  the  windows  were  "half -sheets."  Even  the 
garbage-cans  proclaimed  her  name. 

Fame  was  a  terrifying  thing. 

Sunday  was  given  over  to  a  prolonged  dress-rehearsal 
beginning  at  noon  and  lasting  till  four  the  next  morning. 
At  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  Eugene  Vickery 
in  the  midst  of  a  wrangle  over  a  scene  was  overcome  with 
his  illness. 

A  doctor  who  was  brought  in  haste  picked  him  up  and 
carried  him  to  a  taxicab  and  sped  with  him  to  a  hospital. 
The  troupe  was  staggered  like  a  line  of  infantry  in  which 
the  first  shell  drops.  Then  it  closed  together  and  went  on. 

The  next  day  Sheila  visited  Eugene  and  never  found  a 
r61e  so  hard  to  play  as  the  character  of  Hope  at  the  bedside 
of  Despair. 

The  nurse  would  not  let  her  stay  long  and  forbade 
Vickery  to  talk,  but  he  managed  to  whisper,  brokenly: 

"Don't  worry  about  me.  Don't  think  about  me. 
Work  for  yourself  and  the  play.  That  will  be  working 
for  me.  If  it  succeeds,  it's  a  kind  of  a,  little  immortality 
for  me;  if  it  fails — well,  don't  worry,  I  won't  mind — then. 
Go  and  rest  now.  I've  no  strength  to  give  you,  or  I'd 
make  you  as  strong  as  a  giant — you  poor,  brave,  beautiful 
little  woman!  God  bless  you!  Good  luck!" 


CHAPTER  LVII 

EIGHT  o'clock  and  a  section  of  Broadway  is  a  throng 
of  throngs,  as  if  all  the  world  were  prowling  for 
pleasure.  At  this  theater  or  that,  parts  of  the  crowd  turn 
in.  Where  many  go  there  is  success;  but  there  are  sad 
doorways  where  few  cabs  draw  up  and  few  people  march 
to  the  lonely  window;  and  that  is  a  home  of  failure, 
though  as  much  work  has  been  done  and  as  much  money 
deserved.  Only,  the  whim  of  the  public  is  not  for  that 
place. 

Eight  o'clock  and  Sheila  sits  in  her  dressing-room  in 
an  ague  of  dread,  painting  her  face  and  wondering  why 
she  is  here,  a  lone  woman  fighting  a  mob  for  the  sake  of 
a  dying  man's  useless  glory,  and  for  the  ruin  of  a  living 
man's  schedule  of  life.  Why  is  she  not  where  Bret  Win- 
field  said  a  woman's  place  was — at  home? 

She  wonders  about  Bret.  If  she  fails,  if  she  succeeds, 
what  does  it  mean  to  him  and  her  ?  She  understands  that 
he  has  left  her  alone  till  now  because  he  could  not  help 
her.  But  no  flowers,  no  telegram,  nothing?  She  looks 
over  the  heap  of  telegrams — no,  there  is  nothing  from  him. 

Then  a  note  comes.  He  is  there.  Can  he  see  her? 
Her  heart  leaps  with  rapture,  but  she  dares  not  see  him 
before  the  play.  She  would  cry  and  mess  her  make-up, 
and  she  must  enter  with  gaiety.  She  sends  Pennock  with 
word  begging  him  to  come  after  the  play  is  over — "if  he 
still  wants  to — if  he's  not  ashamed  of  me;  tell  him  that." 

She  thinks  of  him  wincing  as  he  is  turned  away  from  the 
stage  door.  Then  she  banishes  the  thought  of  him,  her 
self,  everybody  but  the  character  she  is  to  play. 

400 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

Outside  the  curtain  is  a  throng  eager  to  be  entertained, 
willing  to  pay  a  fortune  for  entertainment,  but  merciless 
to  those  who  fail.  There  is  no  active  hostility  in  the 
audience — just  the  passive  inertia  of  a  dull,  dreary,  anxious 
mob  afraid  of  being  bored  and  cheated  of  an  evening. 

"Here  are  our  hearts,"  it  says;  "we  are  sick  of  our 
own  lives.  We  do  not  care  what  your  troubles  are  or  your 
good  intentions.  We  have  left  our  homes  to  be  made 
happy,  or  to  be  thrilled  to  that  luxurious  sorrow  for  some 
one  else  that  is  the  highest  happiness.  We  have  come 
here  at  some  expense  and  some  inconvenience.  We  have 
a  hard  day  ahead  of  us  to-morrow.  It  is  too  late  to  go 
elsewhere.  You  have  said  you  have  a  good  show.  Show 
us!" 

Back  of  that  glum  curtain  the  actors,  powdered,  capari 
soned,  painted,  wait  in  the  wings  like  clowns  for  the  crack 
of  the  whip — and  yet  also  like  soldiers  about  to  receive 
the  command  to  charge  on  trenches  where  unknown  forces 
lie  hidden.  No  one  can  tell  whether  they  are  to  be  hurled 
back  in  shame  and  confusion,  or  to  sweep  on  in  uproari 
ous  triumph.  Their  courage,  their  art,  will  be  the  same. 
The  result  will  be  history  or  oblivion,  homage  or  ridicule. 

It  is  an  old  story,  an  incessantly  recurring  story,  a 
tragi-farce  so  commonplace  that  authors  and  actors  and 
managers  and  critics  make  jokes  of  their  failures  and  suc 
cesses — afterward.  But  they  are  not  jokes  at  the  time. 

It  was  no  joke  for  the  husband  who  had  intrusted  Sheila 
to  the  mercy  of  the  public  and  the  press,  and  who  made 
one  of  the  audience,  though  he  quivered  with  an  anguish 
of  fear  as  each  line  was  delivered,  and  an  anguish  of  joy 
or  woe  as  it  scored  or  lapsed. 

It  was  no  joke  to  Eugene  Vickery,  lying  in  the  quiet 
white  room  with  the  light  low  and  one  stolid  stranger  in 
white  to  sentinel  him.  It  was  hard  not  to  be  there  where 
the  lights  were  high,  where  the  throngs  heard  his  pen  and 
ink  made  flesh  and  blood.  It  was  hard  not  to  know  what 

401 


CLIPPED    WINGS 

the  words  he  had  put  on  paper  sounded  like  to  New  York 
— the  Big  Town  of  his  people.  He  wanted  to  see  and  hear 
and  his  soul  would  have  run  there  if  it  could  have  lifted 
his  body.  But  that  it  could  not  do. 

It  could  lift  thousands  of  hands  to  applause  and  lift 
a  thousand  voices  to  cry  his  name,  but  it  could  not  lift 
his  own  hands  or  his  own  voice. 

The  nurse,  who  did  not  understand  playwrights,  tried 
to  keep  him  quiet.  She  kept  taking  the  sheet  from  his 
hands  where  they  kept  tugging  at  its  edge.  She  forbade 
him  to  talk.  She  refused  to  tell  him  what  time  it  was. 

But  he  would  say,  "Now  the  overture's  beginning," 
and  then,  later,  "Now  the  curtain's  going  up."  He  tried 
to  rise  with  it,  but  she  pressed  him  back.  Later  he 
reckoned  that  the  first  act  was  over,  and  then  that  the 
second  act  was  begun. 

Then  a  telephoned  message  was  brought  to  him  that 
Mr.  Reben  telephoned  to  say,  "the  first  act  got  over  great." 

That  almost  lifted  him  to  his  feet,  but  he  fell  back, 
sighing,  "He'd  say  it  anyway,  just  to  cheer  me  up." 

The  same  message  or  better  came  after  the  other  acts. 
But  he  would  not  believe,  he  dared  not  believe,  till  suddenly 
Sheila  was  there  in  her  costume  of  the  last  act.  The 
divine  light  of  good  news  poured  from  her  eyes.  She  had 
not  waited  to  meet  the  people  who  crowded  back  to  con 
gratulate  her — "and  they  never  crowd  after  a  failure," 
she  said. 

She  had  not  waited  to  change  her  costume  lest  she  be 
too  late  with  her  music.  She  had  waited  only  for  Bret  to 
run  to  her  and  tell  her  how  wonderful  she  was,  and  to  crush 
him  as  hard  as  she  could  in  her  arms.  Then  she  had  haled 
him  to  the  cab  that  was  held  in  readiness,  and  they  had 
dashed  for  Vickery's  bed — his  "throne,"  she  called  it. 

Perhaps  she  exaggerated  the  excitement  of  the  audience ; 
perhaps  she  drew  a  little  on  prophecy  in  quoting  what  the 
critics  had  been  overheard  to  say  in  praise  of  the  drama — 
"epoch-making"  was  the  least  word  she  quoted. 

402 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

But  she  brought  in  with  her  a  very  blast  of  beauty  and 
of  rapture,  and  she  carried  flowers  that  she  would  have 
flung  across  his  bed  if  she  had  not  suddenly  feared  the 
look  of  them  there. 

As  for  Vickery,  he  felt  the  beauty  and  fragrance  of  the 
triumphal  red  roses  on  the  towering  stems. 

But  he  closed  the  great  eyelids  over  the  great  eyes  and 
inhaled  the  sweeter,  the  ineffable  aroma  of  success.  It 
was  so  sweet  that  he  turned  his  face  to  the  wall  and 
sobbed. 

Sheila  tried  to  console  him — console  him?  for  his  triumph ! 
She  said:  "Why,  'Gene,  'Gene,  the  play  is  a  sensation! 
The  royalties  will  be  enormous.  The  notices  will  be 
glorious.  You  mustn't  be  unhappy." 

He  put  out  a  hand  that  tried  to  be  soft,  he  made  a 
sound  that  tried  to  be  a  laugh,  and  he  spoke  in  a  sad  rustle 
that  tried  to  be  a  voice : 

"I'm  not  unhappy.  I  never  was  happy  till  now.  The 
royalties  won't  be  necessary  where  I'm  going — just  a  penny 
to  pay  the  ferryman.  The  notices  I'll  read  over  there — I 
suppose  they  get  the  papers  over  there  so  that  the  obituary 
notices  can  be  read — the  first  kind  words  some  of  us  ever 
get  from  this  world. 

"I  owe  it  to  you  two  that  my  play  got  on  and  suc 
ceeded.  Success!  to  write  your  heart's  religion  and  have 
it  succeed  with  the  people — that's  worth  living  for — that's 
worth  dying  for — " 

His  speech  was  frail,  and  broken  with  long  pauses  and 
with  paroxysms: 

"I  hope  I  haven't  ruined  your  lives  for  you  two.  But 
you  weren't  very  happy  when  I  came  along,  were  you? 
Sheila  was  breaking  your  heart,  Bret,  just  because  she 
couldn't  keep  her  own  from  breaking.  You  were  like  a 
man  chained  to  a  dead  woman.  If  you  had  gone  on, 
maybe  you  would  have  been  less  happy  than  you  will 
be  now.  Look  at  poor  Dorothy.  How  long  will  she 
stand  her  unhappiness?  My  royalties  will  go  to  her! 

403 


CLIPPED   WINGS 

They  will  make  her  independent  of  that —  But  I've  got 
no  time  to  be  bitter  against  anybody  now. 

"  I  hope  you'll  be  happy,  you  two.  But  happiness  isn't 
the  thing  to  work  for.  The  thing  to  work  for  is  work — 
to  do  all  you  can  with  what  you  have.  I'm  a  poor,  weak, 
ramshackle  sack  of  bones,  but  I've  done  what  I  could — 
and  a  little  more.  J'ai  fait  mon  possible.  That's  all  God 
or  man  can  ask.  Go  on  and  do  your  possible,  Bret — you 
in  your  factory — and  Sheila  in  her  factory.  I  can't  see 
why  your  chance  for  happiness  isn't  as  good  as  anybody's, 
if  you'll  be  patient  with  each  other  and  run  home  to  each 
other  when  you  can — and — and — now  I've  got  to  run 
home,  too." 

Then  a  deep  peace  soothed  him,  and  them. 


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Havoc E.  Phillips  Oppenheim 

Heart  of  the  Desert,  The Honore  Willsie 

Heart  of  the  Hills,  The Jthn  Fox,  Jr 

Heart  of  Philura Florence  Morse  Kingsley 

Heather-Moon,  Tho C.  JV.  and  A.  M.  Williamson 

Her  Infinite  Variety Brand  Wh&lock 

Her  Weight  in  Gold George  Barr  McCatcheon 

Herb  ef  Grace Ro&a  Nouchette  Carey 


Popular  Copyright  Novels 

AT  MODERATE  PRICES 

Ask  your  dealer  for  a  complete  list  of 
A.  I..  Burt  Company's  Popular  Copyright  Fiction 


Hidden  Children,  The Robert  W.  Chambers 

Highway  of  Fate,  The Rosa  N.  Carey 

Homesteaders,  The Kate  and  Virgil  D.  Boyles 

Hoosier  Volunteer,  The Kate  and  Virgil  D.  Boyles 

Hopalong  Cassidy Clarence  E.  Mulford 

House  of  Happiness,  The Kate  Langley  Bosher 

House  of  the  Whispering  Pines A.  K.  Green 

Hugh  Wynne,  Free  Quaker S.  W.  Mitchell.  M.D. 

Husbands  of  Edith,  The George  Barr  McCutcheon 

Illustrious  Pr'n.ce,  The E  Phillips  Oppenheim 

Imposter,  The John  Reed  Scott 

In  Defiance  of  the  King Chauncey  C.  Hoichkiss 

Indifference  of  Juliet,  The Grace  S.  Richmond 

Inez  (111.  Ed.) Augusta  J.  Evans 

Infelice Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 

Initials  Only Anna  Katharine  Green 

Irnocent Marie  Corelli 

Intriguers,  The Harold  Bindloss 

Iron  Trail,  The Rex  Beach- 
Iron  Woman,  The Margaret  Deland 

Ishmael  (111.) Mrs.  Southworth- 

Island  of  Regeneration,  The Cyrus  Townsend  Brady 

Island  of  the  Stairs,  The Cyrus  Torvnsend  Brady 

Japonette Robert  W.  Chambers 

Jane  Cable George  Barr  McCutcheon 

Jeanne  of  the  Marshes. E.  Phillips  Oppenheim 

Jennie  Gerhardt Theodore  Dreiser 

Joyful  Heatherby Payne  Erskine 

Jude  the  Obscure Thomas  Hardy 

Judgment  House,  The Gilbert  Parker 

Keith  of  the  Border Randall  Parrish 

Kent  Knowles:  "Quahaug" Joseph  C.  Lincoln 

Kingsmead Bettina  Von  Hutten 

Knave  of  Diamonds,  The Ethel  M.  Dell 

Ladder  of  Swords,  A Gilbert  Parker 

Lady  and  the  Pirate,  The Emerson  Hough 

Lady  Betty  Across  the  Water  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson 

Lady  Merton,  Colonist Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 

Land  of  Long  Ago,  The Eliza  Calvert  HalF. 

Last  Shot,  The Frederick  N.  Palmer 


Date  Due 


^HINTED    IN    U.S. 


CAT.    NO.    24    161 


A     000  592  630 


